Lost and confus’d amidst the thicken’d day.
So steamy was the air, that we hardly once saw the summits of the higher mountains. A furious sirocco was succeeded by a short ominous stillness, then a storm from the north enveloped us anew in cloud, and opened the flood-gates of heaven to an accompaniment of thunder and lightning; then a lull, to be followed by another storm and mist and drizzle, till everything was saturated. During these doubtful lulls, with breaks in the clouds as if it meant better things, we rambled, for the sake of exercise, and to see what we could of the country.
When th’ embattled clouds, in dark array,
Along the skies their gloomy lines display,
When now the North his boisterous rage has spent,
And peaceful sleeps the liquid element,
The low-hung vapours, motionless and still,
Rest on the summits of the shaded hill
Till the mass scatters as the winds arise,
Dispers’d and broken, through the ruffled skies.