Auroral Sights, Sounds and Poems

---

They writhed like a brood of angry snakes,
hissing and sulphur pale,
They rolled around with a soundless sound
Like softly bruised silk.
From "The Ballad of the Northern Lights",
by Robert W Service

---

And close ranked spears of gold and blue,
Thin scarlet and thin green,
Hurtled and crashed across the sphere
And hissed in sibilant whisperings,
And died.
From "The Iceberg",
by Sir Charles G.D. Robert

---

The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din.
From "Libertie - A Vision",
by Robert Burns.

---

You tink you hear da skruffel
O der lang green goons o sylk.
If you listen,
When weirdly the lights are streaming,
Perhaps you may hear a whisper low.
Both extracts from "Northern Lights"
by T.A. Robertson.

---

Page Author: Colin Keay c1997. All rights reserved.Auroral photographs courtesy of Jay Brausch, Glen Ullin ND, USA
Auroral radio noise courtesy of Stephen P. McGreevy, University of Iowa
Poetry from "Keoeeit - The Story of the Aurora Borealis" by William Petrie, Pergamon Press, 1963.