C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Storm

The storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and billows.

Schiller.

Unsparing as the scourge of war,
Blasts follow blasts, and groves dismantled roar.

Bloomfield.

A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
Ploughed through the brine, and from these solitudes
Sent Silence frightened.

T. B. Aldrich.

The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low with sobs of pain,—
The thunder-organ of the cloud,
The dropping tears of rain.

Whittier.

It is a tempest in a tumbler of water.

Paul, Grand-Duc de Russie.

It is the flash which appears, the thunder bolt will follow.

Voltaire.

Loud roared the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge showers.

Andrew Cherry.

Blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.

Shakespeare.

The clouds are scudding across the moon,
A misty light is on the sea;
The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune,
And the foam is flying free.

Bayard Taylor.

A red morn that ever yet betoken’d
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gust and foul flaws to herdsmen and to herds.

Shakespeare.

The poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind,—and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!

T. B. Aldrich.

The winds grow high;
Impending tempests charge the sky;
The lightning flies, the thunder roars;
And big waves lash the frightened shores.

Prior.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples.

Shakespeare.

Roads are wet where’er one wendeth,
And with rain the thistle bendeth,
And the brook cries like a child!
Not a rainbow shines to cheer us;
Ah! the sun comes never near us,
And the heavens look dark and wild.

Mary Howitt.

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv’d the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds
But never till tonight, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

Shakespeare.

We often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death.

Shakespeare.

Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still,
Are howling from the mountain’s bosom:
There’s not a breath of wind upon the hill,
Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom:
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

Byron.

Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle.

Shakespeare.

Lightnings, that show the vast and foamy deep,
The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
The loud, loud winds, that o’er the billows sweep—
Shake the firm nerve, appal the bravest soul!

Mrs. Radcliffe.

A thousand miles from land are we,
Tossing about on the roaring sea—
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:
The sails are scattered abroad, like weeds;
The strong masts shake, like quivering reeds;
The mighty cables, and iron chains,
The hull, which all earthly strength disdains—
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard proud strength disown.

Barry Cornwall.

Defeating oft the labors of the year,
The sultry South collects a potent blast.
At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
But as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o’er the sounding world.

Thomson.

Flash!
Lightning, I swear!—there’s a tempest brewing!
Crash!
Thunder, too—swift-footed lightning pursuing!
The leaves are troubled, the winds drop dead,
The air grows ruminant overhead—
Splash!
That great round drop fell pat on my nose.
Flash! crash! splash!—
I must run for it, I suppose.
O what a flashing, and crashing, and splashing,
The earth is rocking, the skies are riven—
Jove in a passion, in god-like fashion,
Is breaking the crystal urns of heaven.

Robert Buchanan.

The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder!

Byron.

Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,
And swell’d with tempests on the ship descends;
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o’er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears;
And instant death on every wave appears.

Homer.

At first, heard solemn o’er the verge of heaven,
The Tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
The Lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The Noise astounds; till overhead a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts,
And opens wider; shuts and opens still
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
Follows the loose’d aggravated Roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal,
Crush’d, horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.

Thomson.

A boding silence reigns,
Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o’er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath.
Prone, to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes
Descend; the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze,
The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
Cast a deploring eye; by man forsook
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.

Thomson.

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