He who has seen the red-forked lightnings flash
From out some bleak and tempest-gathered cloud,
And heard the thunder's simultaneous crash
Bursting in peals terrifically loud;
He who has marked the maddened ocean dash
(Rob'd in its snow-white foam as in a shroud,)
Its giant billows on the groaning shore,
While death seem'd echoed in the deaf'ning roar;
He who has seen the wild tornado sweep
(Its path destruction, and its progress death,)
The silent bosom of the smiling deep
With the black besom of its boisterous breath,
Waking to strife the slumbering waves that leap
In battling surges from their beds beneath,
Yawning and swelling from their liquid caves
Like buried giants from their restless graves:--
He who has gazed on sights and scenes like these,
Hath look'd on nature in her maddest mood.
But Nature's warfare passes by degrees;
The thunder's voice is hush'd, however rude.
The dying winds unclasp the raging seas,
The scowling sky throws by her cloud-capt hood,
The infant lightnings to their cradle creep,
And the gaunt earthquake rocks herself to sleep.
But there are storms whose lightnings ever glare,
Tempests whose thunders never cease to roll--
The storms of love when madden'd to despair,
The furious tempests of the jealous soul,
That kamsin of the heart which few can bear,
Which owns no limit and which knows no goal,
Whose blast leaves joy a tomb, and hope a speck,
Reason a blank, and happiness a wreck.