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| LORD of the winds! I feel thee nigh, | |
| I know thy breath in the burning sky! | |
| And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, | |
| For the coming of the hurricane! | |
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| And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales, | 5 |
| Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails. | |
| Silent and slow, and terribly strong, | |
| The mighty shadow is borne along, | |
| Like the dark eternity to come; | |
| While the world below, dismayed and dumb, | 10 |
| Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere | |
| Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. | |
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| They darken fast; and the golden blaze | |
| Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze, | |
| And he sends through the shade a funeral ray— | 15 |
| A glare that is neither night nor day, | |
| A beam that touches, with hues of death, | |
| The cloud above and the earth beneath. | |
| To its covert glides the silent bird, | |
| While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard | 20 |
| Uplifted among the mountains round, | |
| And the forests hear and answer the sound. | |
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| He is come! he is come! do ye not behold | |
| His ample robes on the wind unrolled? | |
| Giant of air! we bid thee hail!— | 25 |
| How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; | |
| How his huge and writhing arms are bent | |
| To clasp the zone of the firmament, | |
| And fold at length, in their dark embrace, | |
| From mountain to mountain the visible space! | 30 |
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| Darker,—still darker! the whirlwinds bear | |
| The dust of the plains to the middle air; | |
| And hark to the crashing, long and loud, | |
| Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud! | |
| You may trace its path by the flashes that start | 35 |
| From the rapid wheels where’er they dart, | |
| As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, | |
| And flood the skies with a lurid glow. | |
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| What roar is that?—’t is the rain that breaks | |
| In torrents away from the airy lakes, | 40 |
| Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, | |
| And shedding a nameless horror round. | |
| Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies, | |
| With the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes. | |
| I seek ye vainly, and see in your place | 45 |
| The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, | |
| A whirling ocean that fills the wall | |
| Of the crystal heaven, and buries all. | |
| And I, cut off from the world, remain | |
| Alone with the terrible hurricane. | 50 |
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