"I'll share the cold blast on the heath, I'll share thy wants and pain: Nor friend nor foe, nor life nor death, Shall ever make us twain." THUNDER. Spirit of strength, to whom in wrath 'tis given To mar the earth, and shake the vasty heaven: Behold the gloomy robes, that spreading hide Thy secret majesty, lo! slow and wide, Thy heavy skirts sail in the middle air, Thy sultry shroud is o'er the noonday glare: Th' advancing clouds sublimely roll'd on high, Deep in their pitchy volumes clothe the sky; Like hosts of gath'ring foes array'd in death, Dread hangs their gloom upon the earth beneath, It is thy hour: the awful deep is still, And laid to rest the wind of ev'ry hill. Wild creatures of the forest homeward scour, And in their dens with fear unwonted cow'r. Pride in the lordly palace is forgot, And in the lowly shelter of the cot The poor man sits, with all his fam'ly round, In awful expectation of thy sound. Lone on his way the trav'ller stands aghast; The fearful looks of man to heav'n are cast, When, lo! thy lightning gleams on high, As swiftly turns his startled eye; And swiftly as thy shooting blaze Each half performed motion stays, Deep awe, all human strife and labour stills, And thy dread voice alone, the earth and heaven fills. Bright bursts the lightning from the cloud's dark womb, As quickly swallow'd in the closing gloom. The distant streamy flashes, spread askance In paler sheetings, skirt the wide expanse. Dread flaming from aloft, the cat'ract dire Oft meets in middle space the nether fire. Fierce, red, and ragged, shiv'ring in the air, Athwart mid-darkness shoots the lengthen'd glare. Wild glancing round, the feebler lightning plays; The rifted centre pours the gen'ral blaze; And from the warring clouds in fury driven,[A] Red writhing falls the keen embodied bolt of heaven. [Footnote A: In poetry we have only to do with appearances; and the zig-zag lightning, commonly thought to be the thunder-bolt, is certainly firm and embodied, compared to the ordinary lightning, which takes no distinct shape at all.] From the dark bowels of the burthen'd cloud Dread swells the rolling peal, full, deep'ning, loud. Wide ratt'ling claps the heavens scatter'd o'er, In gathered strength lift the tremendous roar; With weaning force it rumbles over head, Then, growling, wears away to silence dread. Now waking from afar in doubled might, Slow rolling onward to the middle height; Like crash of mighty mountains downward hurl'd, Like the upbreaking of a wrecking world, In dreadful majesty, th' explosion grand Bursts wide, and awful, o'er the trembling land. The lofty mountains echo back the roar, Deep from afar rebounds earth's rocky shore; All else existing in the senses bound Is lost in the immensity of sound. Wide jarring sounds by turns in strength convene, And deep, and terrible, the solemn pause between.