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,
With 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.