Classic Poem

The world is heated seven times,
The sky is close above the lawn,
An oven when the coals are drawn.

There is no stir of air at all,
Only at times an inward breeze
Turns back a pale leaf in the trees.

Here the syringa's rich perfume
Covers the tulip's red retreat,
A burning pool of scent and heat.

The pallid lightning wavers dim
Between the trees, then deep and dense
The darkness settles more intense.

A hawk lies panting in the grass,
Or plunges upward through the air,
The lightning shows him whirling there.

A bird calls madly from the eaves,
Then stops, the silence all at once
Disturbed, falls dead again and stuns.

A redder lightning flits about,
But in the north a storm is rolled
That splits the gloom with vivid gold;

Dead silence, then a little sound,
The distance chokes the thunder down,
It shudders faintly in the town.

A fountain plashing in the dark
Keeps up a mimic dropping strain;
Ah! God, if it were really rain!