Such are the phenomena presented in the atmosphere by this most mysterious power. Dreadful in the lightning’s leap, strange and uncanny in the aureole’s glow, wildly and weirdly beautiful in the flickering flash and flow of the Northern Light, we have seen that, though it has played an important part in the history of the world because of its appeal to man’s superstition, it is notwithstanding the occasional bolt of death, to be considered, while one of the most powerful and universal, one of the least to be feared of all the forces of nature; and is practicably responsible for few great disasters. CHAPTER XIII. RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. “I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers, From the seas and the streams, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet birds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under. And then again I dissolve in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores, I change, but I can not die. For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.” The cloud is well worth Shelley’s admiration; for though it be but a vague oppressive mist when it enwraps, yet afar it assumes either beauty or gloom, as its seeming whims may dictate. Few are they who have never paused in silent admiration of some beautiful fleecy spirit of the upper deep, changing every instant like the shifting figures of a kaleidoscope, or presenting fantastic likenesses of natural objects, or ever and anon presenting pictures of strange monsters, such as only the superstitious and timid can imagine. Often in times past have nations stood aghast at the portentous signs observed in season of some great calamity. A lurid beam of light from the hidden sun, darting through a rift in the clouds, has been reported as a flaming sword. Shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, the sky was filled with horses and chariots, rushing to battle. After the siege the wretched survivors recognized too late what was the purpose of the warning. Wordsworth speaks of these bizarre fantasies: