Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail, Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquench'd The unconquerable lightning struggles through, Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls, And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine Stands a sad shatter'd trunk; and, stretch'd below, A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie: Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look They wore alive, and ruminating still In fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull, And ox half-rais'd. Struck on the castled cliff, The venerable tower and spiry fane Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods Start at the flash, and from their deep recess, Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shade Amid Caernarvon's mountains rages loud The repercussive roar; with mighty crush, Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks Of Penmaenmawr heap'd hideous to the sky, Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowdon's peak, Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load. Far-seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze, And Thulè bellows through her utmost isles. Guilt hears appall'd, with deeply troubled thought, And yet not always on the guilty head Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon And his Amelia were a matchless pair; With equal virtue form'd, and equal grace, The same, distinguish'd by their sex alone: Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn, And his the radiance of the risen day. [Illustration: Young Celadon and his Amelia] They lov'd: but such their guileless passion was, As in the dawn of time inform'd the heart Of innocence, and undissembling truth. 'Twas friendship heighten'd by the mutual wish, The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow, Beam'd from the mutual eye. Devoting all To love, each was to each a dearer self; Supremely happy in the awaken'd power Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades, Still in harmonious intercourse they liv'd The rural day, and talk'd the flowing heart, Or sigh'd and look'd unutterable things. [Illustration: A blackened corpse was struck the maid]