 | Poems |  |
On the noyse of Thunder.
By Nature w'are inform'd, that when a CloudVapours endow'd with heat and cold do shroud
The active hot, the sluggish cold assaile
So long, till both dissolve their watrie Jaile,
And break their watrie chaines, when through the aire,
The glittring lightning spreads its fluent haire;
So from those factious strugglings, and those throwes
This clouds ore-laden womb is torne with, growes;
That dismall clafhing, and the noyse we heare,
Which so amazes the astonisht Eare:
But these are but conjectures, it may bring
Its rise and growth from a far higher spring;
For some malignant Exhalations,
Drawne from a Mine of Sulphur, by the Suns
Reflex may be inflam'd, or else that Fire
The upper Region darts, may Flame inspire:
Nay more, some sullen Vapour, which like Hay,
Being long bound up in liquid fetters, may
Give fire unto it selfe, or there may be
Some other dark and gloomie cause, which we
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Which may become its first Incendiarie:
God has lockt up the Meteors in a mist,
Which skreenes them from our sight, could we untwist
The second causes, and divide that Line
That Nature ties, yet could we not untwine
The threds they're woven out of, or unwind
The Mint, where their first Principles were coin'd.
Lord, when thou speak'st in thunder from thy Throne,
The Eccho of thy Voyce shall be a grone;
When thou unclasp'st the windowes of the Skies,
Supreme Divinitie, unsluce mine eyes,
That when the spangled Aire its lightning weares,
Those Flames may be put out with contrite teares.
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