Classic Poem

For a thousand years of time and more,
From the depths of my misty lair,
I issued forth to the frozen north,
But as lord of the upper air.
The sway o'er life and death was mine,
Where'er my footsteps trod,
And in all Creation's broad expanse,
I bowed to none but God.

Where I slumbered, who might know?
Or was cradled, who could tell?
Fierce in my wrath, my blackened path
Was scorched with flames of Hell.
Yet I dwelt in each dew-wet moss-rose bud,
In each trembling blade of grass,
And in sportive glee I skimmed the sea
And danced o'er the dark morass.

I crouched in the granite quarry midst,
I pierced the dull old earth,
I fired the train that long had lain,
And shouted with horrid mirth,
When fierce volcano flung its glare
Far o'er the ocean's brine,
And poured the scalding lava forth
As flagon pours the wine.

Earth's quickener, I slumbered oft,
For centuries concealed,
Like a great thought in stillness wrought
To blaze when once revealed.
Blasting or blessing, alike I strode
An angel or a fiend,
And on flaming wing rejoicing,
Through the deep vault careened.

But I shouted aloud from an inky shroud
When with death and woe I came,
And pealed a blast as I hurried past,
That shook earth's rock-ribbed frame;
And suppliant forests bowed their crests
As my black cohorts swept by,
And the pealing tongue of the thunder flung
Aloft my battle-cry.

A good ship sailing on the sea,
A pilgrim on the shore.
A temple on a lonely hill
Where worship bowed of yore;
A blinding flash, a thunder peal,
That fills the welkin wide,—
A hulk, a corse, a ruin, tell
The sum of human pride.

Ye know how the treacherous wit of men
Has lured me with my love,
How the wing that flamed so free is tamed,
To the flight of the carrier dove
But beware the lightning's tongue of fire,
Ye cunning sons of men,
When the woe begetter shall rend his fetter,
And roam the skies again!