In a Ruin, after a Thunder-Storm

KEEP of the Norman, old to flood and cloud!

Thou dost reproach me with thy sunset look,

That in our common menace, I forsook

Hope, the last fear, and stood impartial proud:

Almost, almost, while ether spake aloud,

Death from the smoking stones my spirit shook

Into thy hollow as leaves into a brook,

No more than they by heaven’s assassins cowed.

But now thy thousand-scarrèd steep is flecked