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Title: Thunder
Author: Joanna Baillie [
More Titles by Baillie]
Spirit of strength, to whom in wrath 'tis given
To mar the earth, and shake the vasty heaven:
Behold the gloomy robes, that spreading hide
Thy secret majesty, lo! slow and wide,
Thy heavy skirts sail in the middle air,
Thy sultry shroud is o'er the noonday glare:
Th' advancing clouds sublimely roll'd on high,
Deep in their pitchy volumes clothe the sky;
Like hosts of gath'ring foes array'd in death,
Dread hangs their gloom upon the earth beneath,
It is thy hour: the awful deep is still,
And laid to rest the wind of ev'ry hill.
Wild creatures of the forest homeward scour,
And in their dens with fear unwonted cow'r.
Pride in the lordly palace is forgot,
And in the lowly shelter of the cot
The poor man sits, with all his fam'ly round,
In awful expectation of thy sound.
Lone on his way the trav'ller stands aghast;
The fearful looks of man to heav'n are cast,
When, lo! thy lightning gleams on high,
As swiftly turns his startled eye;
And swiftly as thy shooting blaze
Each half performed motion stays,
Deep awe, all human strife and labour stills,
And thy dread voice alone, the earth and heaven fills.
Bright bursts the lightning from the cloud's dark womb,
As quickly swallow'd in the closing gloom.
The distant streamy flashes, spread askance
In paler sheetings, skirt the wide expanse.
Dread flaming from aloft, the cat'ract dire
Oft meets in middle space the nether fire.
Fierce, red, and ragged, shiv'ring in the air,
Athwart mid-darkness shoots the lengthen'd glare.
Wild glancing round, the feebler lightning plays;
The rifted centre pours the gen'ral blaze;
And from the warring clouds in fury driven,[A]
Red writhing falls the keen embodied bolt of heaven.
[Footnote A: In poetry we have only to do with appearances; and the zig-zag lightning, commonly thought to be the thunder-bolt, is certainly firm and embodied, compared to the ordinary lightning, which takes no distinct shape at all.]
From the dark bowels of the burthen'd cloud
Dread swells the rolling peal, full, deep'ning, loud.
Wide ratt'ling claps the heavens scatter'd o'er,
In gathered strength lift the tremendous roar;
With weaning force it rumbles over head,
Then, growling, wears away to silence dread.
Now waking from afar in doubled might,
Slow rolling onward to the middle height;
Like crash of mighty mountains downward hurl'd,
Like the upbreaking of a wrecking world,
In dreadful majesty, th' explosion grand
Bursts wide, and awful, o'er the trembling land.
The lofty mountains echo back the roar,
Deep from afar rebounds earth's rocky shore;
All else existing in the senses bound
Is lost in the immensity of sound.
Wide jarring sounds by turns in strength convene,
And deep, and terrible, the solemn pause between.
Aloft upon the mountain's side
The kindled forest blazes wide.
Huge fragments of the rugged deep
Are tumbled to the lashing deep.
Firm rooted in the cloven rock,
Loud crashing falls the stubborn oak.
The lightning keen, in wasteful ire,
Fierce darting on the lofty spire,
Wide rends in twain the ir'n-knit stone,
And stately tow'rs are lowly thrown.
Wild flames o'erscour the wide campaign,
And plough askance the hissing main.
Nor strength of man may brave the storm,
Nor shelter skreen the shrinking form;
Nor castle wall its fury stay,
Nor masy gate may bar its way.
It visits those of low estate,
It shakes the dwellings of the great,
It looks athwart the secret tomb,
And glares upon the prison's gloom;
While dungeons deep, in unknown light,
Flash hidious on the wretches' fight,
And lowly groans the downward cell,
Where deadly silence wont to dwell.
Now upcast eyes to heav'n adore,
And knees that never bow'd before.
In stupid wonder flares the child;
The maiden turns her glances wild,
And lifts to hear the coming roar:
The aged shake their locks so hoar:
And stoutest hearts begin to fail,
And many a manly cheek is pale;
Till nearer closing peals astound,
And crashing ruin mingles round;
Then 'numbing fear awhile up-binds
The pausing action of their minds,
Till wak'd to dreadful sense, they lift their eyes,
And round the stricken corse, shrill shrieks of horror rise.
Now thinly spreads the falling hall
A motly winter o'er the vale,
The hailstones bounding as they fall
On hardy rock, or storm-beat' wall.
The loud beginning peal its fury checks,
Now full, now fainter, with irreg'lar breaks,
Then weak in force, unites the scatter'd found;
And rolls its lengthen'd grumblings to the distant bound.
A thick and muddy whiteness clothes the sky,
In paler flashes gleams the lightning by;
And thro' the rent cloud, silver'd with his ray,
The sun looks down on all this wild affray;
As high enthron'd above all mortal ken,
A greater Pow'r beholds the strife of men:
Yet o'er the distant hills the darkness scowls,
And deep, and long, the parting tempest growls.
[The end]
Joanna Baillie's poem: Thunder
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