All Nature’s face grew sickly: through the plain,
The fell simoom came sweeping like a fiend,
Twisting the tallest palm-trees, as their stems
Were lithest summer reeds, and wrenching up
Centurial cedars. Silver-threaded streams
Grew to a leaden blackness: tempest-clouds,
Lurid with fiery fringes, marshaled all
Their most terrific grandeur, and rolled on
In thunderous darkness, till the funeral heavens
Thrilled to the shock, and the fast-anchored earth