AURORA BOREALIS QUOTES
quotations about the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights
The phantom-host has faded quite,
Splendor and Terror gone--
Portent or promise--and gives way
To pale, meek Dawn.
HERMAN MELVILLE
"Aurora Borealis"
Some believe that whistling and making other sounds at the aurora will either cause it to become more active, use it as a way to speak to their ancestors or even that the aurora will come down and take their heads off, thus making them observe it in silence and awe.
ANDY LONG
Photographing the Aurora Borealis: How to Shoot the Northern Lights
The northern cheek of the heavens,
By a sudden glory kissed,
Blushed to the tint of roses,
And hid in an amber mist,
And through the northern pathway,
Trailing her robe of flame,
The queenly Borealis
In her dazzling beauty came!
MAY RILEY SMITH
"Aurora Borealis"
When I look at the northern lights ... I see our ancestors dancing around a sacred fire, lighting the way for us when it's time for us to cross over from this physical world and join them.
MOLLY LARKIN
"What do the Northern Lights mean for us?"
Amid the majesty of night,
What splendid vision strikes my eyes,
In glory bursting on the sight,
Forth from the northern skies?
STEPHEN GREENLEAF BULFINCH
"The Aurora Borealis"
Want to see aurora borealis? Head north, my friends.
JAMES WALSH & PETER KIMPTON
"How do I ... see the northern lights?", The Guardian, October 16, 2015
With strange, fantastic shapes they haunt my brain;
A sky of amber, streaked with silver rain;
A blaze of glory, Heaven's resplendent fires;
A temple gleaming with a thousand spires;
A sea of light that laves a shore of stars;
The gates of Paradise, swift-rolling cars;
A golden pulse, quick-beating through the night;
Contending armies mailed in armor bright;
A gauzy curtain drawn by unseen hands;
Night's gorgeous drapery looped with starry bands;
Vast, burning cities, that lie far away;
Blushes on Nature's face--pale ghosts of Day;
A boundless prairie swept by phantom fire;
The vibrant strings of some gigantic lyre;
Emblazoned chariots ever skyward driven;
God writing in the open book of Heaven;
The flaming banner of the North unfurled;
The mystery that dares a boasting world!
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Aurora Borealis"
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.
JACK LONDON
The Call of the Wild
The aurora borealis is a fickle phenomenon. A week can pass without a flicker ... then bang! The Northern Lights come on like a celestial lava lamp.
NIGEL TISDALL
"Northern Lights: Light at the end of the tundra", The Telegraph, November 10, 2008
The north! the north! from out the north
What founts of light are breaking forth,
And streaming up these evening skies,
A glorious wonder to our eyes!
HANNAH FLAGG GOULD
"The Aurora Borealis"
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream
In fiction, they have been used as a gateway to a parallel universe. In song, they've inspired prog rockers and Welsh psych-poppers alike. In real life, the northern lights are just as spectacular, offering an unforgettable display of colourful lights that put even the stage shows of French electro legend Jean Michel Jarre to shame.
JAMES WALSH & PETER KIMPTON
"How do I ... see the northern lights?", The Guardian, October 16, 2015
You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.
JAMES THOMSON
Castle of Indolence
Aurora had but newly chased the night,
And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light.
JOHN DRYDEN
Palamon and Arcite
But be warned, unless you happen to live in a high-latitude location or are just plain lucky, your best chance of seeing the aurora borealis is to travel to somewhere near or ideally above the Arctic Circle when there are long periods of darkness. Which means winter in or near the Arctic Circle, so that is likely to be both very cold and quite remote. And then there is no guarantee that the grand spectacle will actually perform when you are there.
IAN SKELLERN
"The How, What, When, Where And Why Of Seeing The Aurora Borealis, AKA Northern Lights", Quill & Pad, February 29, 2016
Tumultuous streams of glory gushed,
Ten thousand thousand rainbows rushed
And revelled through the boundless sky,
In jousting, flashing radiancy.
Careering around the welkin's brim
Like bright embattled Seraphim;
Or soaring up to the dome of Night,
Flooding the Milky-way with light;
Or streaming down on the mountain peaks,
On the muirland wastes, and the heather brakes;
On lake and river, on tower and tree,
Showering a sky-born galaxy,
Like a storm of pearls and diamonds driven,
Imbued with the gorgeous hues of heaven!
DAVID VEDDER
"The Aurora Borealis"
O'er all the widespread northern skies,
How glows and waves that heavenly light,
Where dome, and arch, and column rise
Magnificently bright!
STEPHEN GREENLEAF BULFINCH
"The Aurora Borealis"
The only thing more exciting than experiencing the aurora borealis is to experience it with friends, whooping and hollering.
YOUNG KIM
"How to Chase the Lights", The Northern Light, March 27, 2016
The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer.
PHILIP PULLMAN
The Golden Compass
At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre,
And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,
Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre;
And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.
EDMUND SPENSER
The Faerie Queene