Ill 



THE STORM ON ETNA. 



O ! 'twas a glorious sight from that great throne, 

 As morning's tempered beauty changed in Heaven 

 To day's meridian power, to see below 

 Dense exhalations, in procession wild, 

 Sublimely riding on the winged wind, 

 Band after band, the vanguards of a storm 

 Heralding legions of compacted clouds 

 That rose from the horizon far in forms 

 Minute and undefined but wafted near 

 And nearer still with every fitful gust 

 Grew giant shadows, in battalion ranged, 

 Pregnant with fire for elemental war 

 Thronging upon their course in woven flight 

 Like Syrian locusts shutting out the sun, 

 And folding darkness, as a garment, round 

 The woody summit of each straggling hill ; 

 Till in the fury of their headlong sweep 

 A barrier stayed them on the mountain's side 

 Where half-way down hang Etna's girdling woods 

 And there uniting in a boundless shroud 

 They brooded o'er the prospect, in mid air, 

 Hung like a heaving sea ; while over all, 

 Upwards to Heavens' eternal beaming eye, 

 Lifts his magnificent head, one glorious peak ! 

 With cloudless sun-light sleeping on the snow 

 That diadems his brow. 



Anon the fire 



Of elements conflicting shoots its way 

 In burning grandeur through the darkened scene, 

 Flashes in lightning splendour to the sea, 

 Dazzles the trembling hills and smites the crest 

 Of cloud disparting pinnacles, that fall 

 Beneath the fiery influence in wreck 

 Rolling and crashing down the riven steep 

 Till mingling with the torrent's gush, they leap 

 Through its white waters to the moaning main. 



Peal after peal the thunder's echoing sound, 

 Flung from reiterating cloud to cloud, 

 Rolls slowly upwards to the crater's brim , 



