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knows what cloud is marshalling, with light- 

 ning's red wrath in its breast ; in what cave 

 o' the winds Eolus, the father of them, is 

 tempering his cyclones for a dance of 

 death. At morning, maybe, you wake into 

 a hot stillness that clings, stifles, till you 

 gasp and pant. Overhead is no fold or 

 break. Everywhere a dense, watery opacity 

 with no saving downpour. The hours go 

 leaden-footed all life is afaint, with bur- 

 dened breathing in this close, stolid air. 



Presently a sobbing gasp comes through 

 it another another. A fitful wind blows 

 out from the lowest cloud. A fine, sharp, 

 crackling swell comes with it. The weather- 

 wise sniff it, to say, shaking the head, 

 "Thunder in the air." Soon it smites the 

 ear pealing, booming, sullen afar off. 

 The low clouds stir drift languidly over- 

 head, letting fall a few big drops. Above 

 them, sailing against, in the southwest, a 

 cloud shape comes, born with the speed of 

 light. All its greenish-copper hue is seamed 

 with white, darting fire. Wind-torn, thunder- 

 riven, it leaps along the earth rising, fall- 

 ing, rending, roaring, grinding to powder 

 whatever withstands its wrath ; pelting all 

 the sweet new world with big sheets of rain, 

 with stinging broadsides of hail ; flinging 



