I am lord of flesh and thunder, rider of the tempest rack,
When it drives along the fragment, ,and earth below is black,
And the four winds are my horses, with their dark mases streaming back!
Under summer’s blue pavilion is the mustering of my clans.
Slowly, silently they gather, ghost-like as their misty vans,
Till the weight of stilted thunder chokes the air, no zephyr fans.
Watchers of my forming bastions, and my cloud peaks piled on high,
Seem to see the snowy Andes in mirages climb the sky,
With their vast, primoval glaciers creeping formidably nigh!
O, my palace in the sunlight is a glory of the air!
Arches upon arches rising, dome by dome in order fair,
And a hundred towers fantastic jutting out abrupt and bare.
Over every coign and buttress, all the tints of purple lie–
Deep and dark against their bases, faint and dove-like on the sky–
And its walls, from tawny copper to pale gold, lift every dye.
But at eve it stands, and Etna, crags of gloom on heavier glooms;
Deep within, the uneasy lightnings, flitting, shake their fiery plumes.
And far back, through glowing corridors ye see my secret rooms;
Hear the dull roar of the forges and the hammers throbbing choir,
Where the jagged bolts of thunder on my anvils drip with fire;
Aye, half catch the swarthy demons barbing the red shafts with ire;
Then at midnight; O! at midnight I fling out my gloomiest flag;
Then the sleuth-bound of the tempest, baying, leaps from crag to crag,
Dragging down the oak of centuries as it were an antlered stag!
And I hurl my volleyed grape-shot where the hamlet sleeps in peace,
And my yelling, swart Malayans draw the lightning’s crooked crease,
Stabbing through the tent of darkness at their viewless enemies!
O! ye mortals, how ye tremble! how ye hide the sleepless head.
As if rang the Judgement trumpet thrilling through the quick and dead,
And I laugh my mocking laughter till the boldest shriek with dread!
But the new day breaks in glory, and no more the mountain reels,
Though ye hear the far receding of my bickering chariot wheels.
All the emerald world is richer for the love my wrath conceals.
For I send my silent lightnings through the veins of grass and fern.
And my slow innocuous flashes in the cheeks of roses burn,
And the stately forest garners in broad life the bolt’s return.
Thus am I, with all my terrors, all my beauty, raven and dove,
On my wings of purple, bearing messages of love
From the Ruler of the tempest, and the starry blue above!
The Thunder Spirit