Of a destroying angel—withering winds
Rose, winged with lightning, and the brazen sky
Was one red desert, peopled with a host
Of burning shadows, lurid shapes of hell,
That wildly mingled with the falling stars,
And whirled in flaming chaos up to heaven!
Clouds heated to a whiteness writhed and tossed
Along the horizon’s verge of liquid fire,
And, from their snowy foldings rent and torn,
Gushed forth a stream of meteors, like deep gouts