STORM.
He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind.
He maketh the storm a calm.—Psalm cvii. 25, 29.
Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of Hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest.—Isaiah, xxix. 6.
The storm was laid, the winds retired,
Obedient to Thy will;
The sea, that roared at Thy command,
At Thy command was still.
Addison.
O God! have mercy in this dreadful hour
On the poor mariner! in comfort here
Safe shelter’d as I am, I almost fear
The blast that rages with resistless power.
What were it now to toss upon the waves—
The madden’d waves, and know no succour near;
The howling of the storm alone to hear,
And the wild sea that to the tempest raves;
To gaze amid the horrors of the night,
And only see the billows’ gleaming light;
And in the dread of death to think of her
Who, as she listens sleepless to the gale,
Puts up a silent prayer and waxes pale?
O God! have mercy on the mariner!
Southey.
A thunder-storm!—the eloquence of heaven,
When every cloud is from its slumber riven,
Who hath not paused beneath its hollow groan,
And felt Omnipotence around him thrown?
With what a gloom the ush’ring scene appears!
The leaves all fluttering with instinctive fears,
The waters curling with a fellow dread,
A breezeless fervour round creation spread,
And, last, the heavy rain’s reluctant shower,
With big drops patt’ring on the tree and bower,
While wizard shapes the low’ring sky deform,—
All mark the coming of a thunder-storm.
R. Montgomery.