STORM AT TWILIGHT.
The roar of a chafed lion in his lair
Begirt by levelled spears! A sudden flash,
Intense, yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye
Searching the darkness. The wild bay of winds
Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar,
Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen,
Javelin in hand. From the moth wings of twilight
There falls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom
Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed
With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through
Like light let dimly through the fissured rock
Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon,
The green sea of the forest has rolled back
Its levelled billows, and where mast-like trees
Sway to its bosom, here and there, a vine
Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings, rocked aloft
Like a bold mariner! There is no bough
But lifteth an appealing arm to heaven.
The scudding grass is shivering as it flies,
And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth
Like frightened children. 'Tis more terrible,
When the near thunder speaks, and the fleet wind
Stops like a steed that knows his rider's voice;
For, oh, the hush that follows is the calm
Of a despairing heart, and, as a maniac
Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm,
Weeping fast tears, awakens with a sob
From its blank desolation, and shrieks on!
Begirt by levelled spears! A sudden flash,
Intense, yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye
Searching the darkness. The wild bay of winds
Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar,
Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen,
Javelin in hand. From the moth wings of twilight
There falls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom
Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed
With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through
Like light let dimly through the fissured rock
Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon,
The green sea of the forest has rolled back
Its levelled billows, and where mast-like trees
Sway to its bosom, here and there, a vine
Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings, rocked aloft
Like a bold mariner! There is no bough
But lifteth an appealing arm to heaven.
The scudding grass is shivering as it flies,
And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth
Like frightened children. 'Tis more terrible,
When the near thunder speaks, and the fleet wind
Stops like a steed that knows his rider's voice;
For, oh, the hush that follows is the calm
Of a despairing heart, and, as a maniac
Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm,
Weeping fast tears, awakens with a sob
From its blank desolation, and shrieks on!