 | Prose sketches and poems |  |
THE LIGHTNING.
The breath of the ocean my cradle is,
Which the sun takes up from the blue abyss;
And the upper cold gives it shape and form,
And it peoples itself with living storm.
And when it has reached the upper air,
I hold its helm while it wanders there;
And I lie in the shade of the lifted sail,
And steer my boat before the gale.
I coil myself like a quivering snake,
Invisible on a chaotic lake;
And I stay unseen in the chasms of cloud,
And the vapors that even to earth are bowed.
I look on the stars with my glittering eye,
And they hide away while the clouds go by;
And while my eye and form are unseen,
The meteors down to my palace lean.
And when my cradle is shaken by wind,
And moon and stars are eyeless behind,
Oh then I quiver, and mankind see
Me lose invisibility.
I look in the eye of the winged stars,
And they wheel away their orbal cars,
And hide afar in the depths of heaven,
Like water-drops by the tempest driven.
I look on the sun—and he hideth under
The misty plume of my servant, Thunder;
And the moon shuts up her arching lid,
And the eye by which the tides are fed.
Which the sun takes up from the blue abyss;
And the upper cold gives it shape and form,
And it peoples itself with living storm.
And when it has reached the upper air,
I hold its helm while it wanders there;
And I lie in the shade of the lifted sail,
And steer my boat before the gale.
I coil myself like a quivering snake,
Invisible on a chaotic lake;
And I stay unseen in the chasms of cloud,
And the vapors that even to earth are bowed.
I look on the stars with my glittering eye,
And they hide away while the clouds go by;
And while my eye and form are unseen,
The meteors down to my palace lean.
And when my cradle is shaken by wind,
And moon and stars are eyeless behind,
Oh then I quiver, and mankind see
Me lose invisibility.
I look in the eye of the winged stars,
And they wheel away their orbal cars,
And hide afar in the depths of heaven,
Like water-drops by the tempest driven.
I look on the sun—and he hideth under
The misty plume of my servant, Thunder;
And the moon shuts up her arching lid,
And the eye by which the tides are fed.
135
I take the form of a fiery adder,
And dash myself down the heaving ladder
Of cloud, till I hiss on the ocean's breast,
And it foams and awakes from its azure rest.
I take the form of an arrow of flame,
And I pierce the clouds and make darkness tame;
And the flap of night's dark, drifting sail,
Shakes down to the earth the glancing hail.
I dash myself against rifted rocks,
And the echoes awake and come in flocks;
And each with his hoarse and rattling tongue,
Throws back the challenge the thunder flung.
And often when heaven's unstained floor
Is as far from dim as the inmost core
Of an angel's heart, I am seen to glide
From the lid of the west;—thus the cheek of a bride
Will blush when her lover's step is heard;—
And then, like the wing of a heavy bird,
My voice of thunder afar wakes,
And the dim sunset his pinion shakes.
And there all night I am seen to quiver,
Like the pulse of an adamantine river,
That out of the depth doth come and go—
And my cradle of cloud is unseen below.
I am hidden in earth, and air, and water;
I am parent of life, and king of slaughter;
I green the earth—I open the flowers,
And make then blush by the lip of showers.
I am the heart's etherial essence,
And life exists not, save in my presence;
I am the soul of the mighty earth,
And give its children their vital birth.
I go to the heart of the hidden rocks,
And my touch awakens the earthquake shocks;
I am the soul of the flowers and buds,
And I feed them with air and water-floods.
I am eternal, and change forever;
I wander always, but dissipate never;
Decay and waste no power possess
On me the deathless and fatherless.
And dash myself down the heaving ladder
Of cloud, till I hiss on the ocean's breast,
And it foams and awakes from its azure rest.
I take the form of an arrow of flame,
And I pierce the clouds and make darkness tame;
And the flap of night's dark, drifting sail,
Shakes down to the earth the glancing hail.
I dash myself against rifted rocks,
And the echoes awake and come in flocks;
And each with his hoarse and rattling tongue,
Throws back the challenge the thunder flung.
And often when heaven's unstained floor
Is as far from dim as the inmost core
Of an angel's heart, I am seen to glide
From the lid of the west;—thus the cheek of a bride
Will blush when her lover's step is heard;—
And then, like the wing of a heavy bird,
My voice of thunder afar wakes,
And the dim sunset his pinion shakes.
And there all night I am seen to quiver,
Like the pulse of an adamantine river,
That out of the depth doth come and go—
And my cradle of cloud is unseen below.
I am hidden in earth, and air, and water;
I am parent of life, and king of slaughter;
I green the earth—I open the flowers,
And make then blush by the lip of showers.
I am the heart's etherial essence,
And life exists not, save in my presence;
I am the soul of the mighty earth,
And give its children their vital birth.
I go to the heart of the hidden rocks,
And my touch awakens the earthquake shocks;
I am the soul of the flowers and buds,
And I feed them with air and water-floods.
I am eternal, and change forever;
I wander always, but dissipate never;
Decay and waste no power possess
On me the deathless and fatherless.
136
Unelemental, immaterial,
Less gross than aught that is etherial,
And next to spirit in rank am I;
While matter exists I can never die.
Less gross than aught that is etherial,
And next to spirit in rank am I;
While matter exists I can never die.
| Prose sketches and poems | |