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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



m 



Aurora Bo realis Loch Leven. 



adequate idea of its magical aspect, as seen in 

 high latitudes, the painter's hand and the poet's 

 art are needed. A native Russian, Lomonosov, 

 thus refers to the spectacle: 



" Where are thy secret laws, O Nature, where? 

 Thy torch-lights dazzle in the* wintry zone ; 

 How dost thou light from ice thy torches there ? 

 There has thy sun some sacred, secret throne ? 

 See in your frozen sea what glories have their birth ; 

 Thence night leads forth the day t' illuminate the earth. 



" Come then, philosopher, whose privileg'd eye 

 Reads Nature's hidden pages and decrees t 

 Come now, and tell us whence, and where, and why, 



Earth's icy regions glow with lights like these, 

 That fill our souls with awe ; profound inquirer, say, 

 For thou dost count the stars, and trace the planet's way. 



" What fills with dazzling beams the illumin'd air ? 



What wakes the flames that light the firmament ? 

 The lightnings flash : there is no thunder there, 



And earth and heaven with fiery sheets are blent ; 

 The winter's night now gleams with brighter, lovelier ray, 

 Than ever yet adorn'd the golden summer's day. 



" Is there some vast, some hidden magazine, 



Where the gross darkness flames of fire supplies? 

 Some phosphorous fabric, which the mountains screen, 



Whose clouds of light above those mountains rise ? 

 Where the winds rattle loud around the foaming sea, 

 And lift the waves to heaven in thundering revelry ? " 



