STORM: AT THE FARM WINDOW
The unruly member (for relief
Of aching head) clacks without care;
Pastures lie sullen; hung with grief
The steading: thunder binds the air.
Gulls on the blue sea-surface rock:
The cows move lowing to scant shade;
Jess lays aside the half-worked smock,
Dan, in his ditch, lets fall the spade.
Now swoops the outrageous hurricane
With lightning in steep pitchfork jags;
The blanched hill leaps in sheeted rain,
Sea masses white to assault the crags.
Such menace tottering overhead,
Old Jess for ague scolds no more;
She sees grey bobtail flung down dead
Lightning-blazed by the barn door—
Wonder and panic chase our grief,
Purge our thick distempered blood;
Man, cattle, harvest shock and sheaf,
Stagger below the sluicing flood....