Flash after flash lights up the dreaded scene, And answering thunder speaks from every cloud; While the deep caverns of the ocean swell Their mystic voices in the chorus grand. Men sit in silence now with anxious looks, While timid mothers seek their downy beds, And press their wailing infants to their breasts. From her low lattice by the cottage-door, The bolder housewife marks the pelting storm; Sees the adventurous traveler onward go, Seeking his distant hamlet, ere the night Adds tenfold horrors to the dismal scene. Swiftly the steed bounds o’er the woodland plain, While hope beams brightly from the rider’s eye, When lo! a crimson flash, with peal sublime, Instant as thought, and terrible as death, Around her bursts. Blinded, she starts, then seeing, Looks again. The horse and his bold rider lie Hushed in the marble-sleep that lasts through time. And while the wind howls mournfully around, The forest owns the baptism of fire. The onset o’er, in mingled fire and hail, Behold the rain in sweet profusion falls. The warm shower melts the crystal drops that hide The earth’s brown bosom; and the foaming brooks Go singing down the hills, and through the vales, Like happy children when their task is done. A few bright flashes, and hoarse, rattling peals, And then, amid the broad and crimson glow, O’er western hills, a golden spot appears, That spreads and brightens as the tempest wanes, Like Heaven’s first smile upon the dying’s face. ’Tis gone, the rumbling of its chariot wheels Dies in the ocean vales where echo sleeps; While waves that roll’d in music on the shore, Lashed into angry surges, foam and break In notes of terror on the rocky lee. ’Tis gone, and on its bosom dark and wild The bow of God is hung, in colors bright And beautiful as morning’s blushing tints, When the ark rested on the mountain top, And the small remnant of a deluged world, Looked out upon the wilderness, and wept. — Gently the Sabbath breaks upon the hills, As when the first blest Sabbath marked the course Of time. The golden sunbeam sleeps upon The woods. No cloud casts o’er the scene a shade. The six days’ labor ended, man and beast Enjoy the season of appointed rest. The fields are lonely, and the drowsy dells Scarce catch the whisper of the gentle air; And now is heard, for over hill and dale, Up laughing valley, and through whisp’ring glen, Gladdening the solitary place, and sadder heart, The sweet-toned Sabbath-bell. Oh, joyful sound! When from the Indian Isle the storm-tossed bark, Furls its white pinion by its cradled shore, And the tir’d sailor, on the giddy yard, Cent’ring the thoughts of years in one short hour, Looks to the land, and hears thy melting peal. At such an hour the grateful heart pours out Its praise, that upward soars like the blue smoke Rising from its bright cottage-hearth to heaven;