To a Lady, LXV

Oh Earth, it is a little gem, The green Earth, and the bright; An emerald, in a diadem Of sapphire, blue as night; As night—when all the stars are dim, Because the moon shines fair, And Nature sends her holy hymn, Up, through the stilly air. And now I know that angels bright Are ever with it, in its flight, And dance around it, as it rolls, And spinneth on its silver poles. They flit anear its azure coasts, The legions of the Lord of Hosts; Ten thousand, thousand, angel wings Are with it in its journeyings, And these are they, whose simple smile Is starlight to the little isle; And oft their troops are visible In changing columns, quick and glancing, As if the skies, by miracle, Were full of angel-lustres dancing. And these in bright successive changes, The boy, that through the woodland ranges Beholds appall’d, and in his fear Believes the judgment-day is near; While duller wits are gravely set With glass, and tube and tourniquet, And eyes asquint,—at what they call Naught but Aurora-Boreal; Unweeting that the sign is there, As God in flesh, did once declare, That all the world might know before, How earth should rock, and ocean roar, And nations quake, and empires wail, And man’s strong heart with terror fail.