Thunder Storm Off Race Point
Beyond the dunes what monstrous shapes are these
Like Titans rearing out of the abyss
To menace heaven? Terrible they loom
Upheaving with their shoulders till the sky
Is warped and yielding, and the trampled sea
Pales into death white foam. Impending doom
Sweeps to engulf the world, when flash on flash,
As far heat lightnings glint on burnished arms,
The wild Valkyries come! Their jet black steeds
Outpace the furious winds; and hark, the stroke
Of Thor, the Thunder God! His hammer dread
Splinters the silence, crashing downward, stuns
The firmament. That glare that blinds the eye
Is Woden’s Sword! It pierces coil on coil
Night’s writing dragon, pouring forth its flood
Of venomed gloom.
Redoubled is the din
The powers of Tartarus and Heaven locked,
In mortal strife. The adamantine base
Foundationing the everlasting hills,
And the resounding archways of the sky,
Reverberate and tremble!
Wildly burst
Like pent up tears, the rains that hurtle down
Sodden with chill; while whimpering, the surge
All tempest frayed and besomed, choked with sobs,
Fingers the whining sands.
Ages it seems,
Tumultuous aeons, e’er the torrents cease
And tides of blackness ebb. Far out to sea
The mighty conflict drifts, the thunders die
As scorpion whips of forked lightnings scourge
The cringing giants of the cloud that flee
Down to their dungeons in the vasty deep;
While o’er their tatters rides the full orbed moon
Glorious, resplendent like the shield of Mars,
Triumphant o’er the terrors of the storm.