Classic Poem

COMMEMORATIVE OF THE DISSOLUTION OF ARMIES AT THE PEACE

What power disbands the Northern Lights
After their steely play?
The watcher feels a creeping awe
Of Nature's sway,
As when appearing,
He marked their flashed uprearing
In the cold gloom —
Retreatings and advancings,
(Like dallyings of doom),
Transitions and enhancings,
And bloody ray.

The phantom-host has failed quite,
Splendor and Terror gone —
Portent or promise — and gives way
To pale, meek Dawn;
The coming, going,
Alike in wonder showing —
Alike the God,
Decreeing and commanding
The million blades that glowed,
The muster and disbanding —
Midnight and Morn.