 | Poems by Bernard Barton |  |
227
WRITTEN ON A STORMY EVENING.
The voice of thy thunder was in the heavens; the lightnings
lightened the world.—Psalm lxxvii. ver. 18.
When the beam of the sun, on a bright summer's day,
To each light-drifted cloud his own glory is granting;
I love to recline on the turf, and survey,
As the clouds sail above me, a scene so enchanting.
To each light-drifted cloud his own glory is granting;
I love to recline on the turf, and survey,
As the clouds sail above me, a scene so enchanting.
But the soul-speaking grandeur of seasons like this
Gives birth to a deeper, sublimer emotion;
And wakens a feeling more pure than such bliss,
Of fearful delight, and of awful devotion.
Gives birth to a deeper, sublimer emotion;
And wakens a feeling more pure than such bliss,
Of fearful delight, and of awful devotion.
How transcendently grand in its gloom is yon cloud,
Through which the fork'd lightning is brilliantly darting;
And when spent the first peal of the thunder-clap proud,
How majestic the echoes which speak its departing!
Through which the fork'd lightning is brilliantly darting;
And when spent the first peal of the thunder-clap proud,
How majestic the echoes which speak its departing!
228
I know all I witness results from those laws
Which plann'd by the Infinite, act without error;
And, knowing who rules each effect, and its cause,
This war of the elements wakens no terror.
Which plann'd by the Infinite, act without error;
And, knowing who rules each effect, and its cause,
This war of the elements wakens no terror.
But I cannot behold it, unmov'd at the sight;
Nor think without awe, as the cloud's cleft asunder,
Of Him who is cloth'd in a garment of light!
And whose voice in the heavens is heard in his thunder!
Nor think without awe, as the cloud's cleft asunder,
Of Him who is cloth'd in a garment of light!
And whose voice in the heavens is heard in his thunder!
| Poems by Bernard Barton | |