ON THE MOUNTAIN.

I.

A storm from the mountain is coming,

With lightning and thunder and rain,

The wind is sweeping and humming

In the butternut trees on the plain.

The cloud is ebon that follows,

The fore-cloud is livid and pale,

There’s the flash and the tossing of swallows

In the turn of the eddying gale.

The rain is awake on the mountain,

’T is lashing the forest afar

With fall of a shattering fountain

And the tramp and tumult of war,

14With the drums of the detoning thunder,

And the clang in the bugles of wind,

With the gonfalons tortured asunder

By the rush of the host from behind.

The plains are leaping with shadows,

The highlands go out like a blot,

And over the eddying meadows

The rain is hurtled like shot.

The darkness is glooming and brightening,

There is alternate chaos and form,

With the parry and thrust of the lightning

In the turbulent heart of the storm.

II.

Now the storm is over,

And the greener plain

Seems to glow and hover

Through the thinning rain.

Now the wind is gusty

In the maple tops,

Striking out the lusty

Storms of gleaming drops.

Now the goldfinch whistles

In his spattered vest,

Balanced on the thistles,

Bolder than the best.

And the hermit thrushes

On the sparkling hills,

Link the dripping hushes

With their silver thrills.

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