Theodore Stephanides
Aurora Borealis
(seen from Corfu, 24th March 1940)
The day was ended, but the northern sky
Shone with an angry red. Its crimson light
Turned the remembered beauty of the night
Into an alien splendour that the eye
Saw with both fear and wonder. In that red
The sweet familiar stars seemed shrunk and pale
(But faded ghosts of light) and some had fled,
Their beams extinguished by that shimmering veil
That walled, encroaching, up the sky. Below
A mountain pinnacle upreared its head,
A wedge of black against a scarlet bow.

The Heavens flamed a presage in that glow,
Reflections of the tides that were to flow
Red and more red ere that dread Year was dead.*

(from "Autumn Gleanings: Corfu Memoirs and Poems")

* On 28 October 1940 (known in Greece as "Ochi Day") the Greek government rejected Mussolini's demand that Greece should open its borders to the Italian army, and that the Italian army attempted to invade Greece from Albanian border. The invasion was successfully repulsed, but led to the decisive entry of German troops into Greece in April 1941.