The Storm-Waltz

The fields were brown with Summer's breathless heat.
     And sere leaves, in their first faint lisp
     Of Autumn, touched their edges crisp. 
And dry grass rustled to the passers' feet, 
While withered earth against the brazen sky
     Breathed unseen poisons from morass and fen, — 
Seemed anger burning in the Sun's red eye,
     And Hope's torch dying in the eyes of men; — 
Till, on a morn when sultry night had press'd, 
Like a hot vapor, on the sleeper's breast, 
A soothing breath, as if an Angel's wing 
Struck the dull air to ripples, 'gan to sing 
Through dusty leaves, and moisten their pale lips.
          Which, to their frailest tips, 
Felt life again, even as a gladness slips, 
Down human pulses at the breath of love; 
          And they who woke smiled clear
     To the dark skies above, which frown'd severe, 
A moment smiled upon the tempest's path — 
When at a flash the dun vault split in wrath
     Of crackling fires, which tore their dome in sunder, 
     Shook the pained sleepers into sudden wonder, 
And jar'd the wide earth with their trundling thunder!

           Then the winds smote 
The shivering forests, with their writhing lashes,
          The wrung boughs seemed to float 
     On the wild breakers of the storm, 
     Whose dash of spray, o'er the black form 
Of reef-like clouds, was the keen lightning's flashes. 
          Men trembled at the blue 
          Unearthly fires, which flew 
Like the hot finger of Retributive Wrath, 
     In menacing gesture shaken from the folds 
     Of his black robe, at secret holds 
Of awful guilt; and though the crinkling path 
Of the quick Terrors led from Heaven, they fell
 Rather like bursting meteors of Hell, 
Than aught divine, if one knew not how clear 
Those flames should purge the boiling atmosphere.

          One bolt of the avenging fire 
          Ran hissing down the village spire 
Like a red serpent, and with burning tongue 
Singed through the curtains and the hallowed Book, 
     While the pursuing thunders shook
A wide breach in the heavy walls, 
Where even yet the mellow daylight falls. 
          Though the poor peasants sigh
     To see the ruin, as they saunter by: — 
The thunders broke, as earthquake broke before, 
The iron firmness of the prison door;
     Shivered the blind, black jail,
Whose windowless brows frowned o'er the smiling vale, 
And men looked down with shuddering awe to see 
How the keen bolt clove down their gallows-tree.

     I rose among my trembling peers, 
And, if not all unshaken by their fears,
     Felt more a wild delight 
In the wild power of storm and fire, 
Than any terror, when a grander sight 
Than ever dream yet granted to Desire, 
Grew on my vision, as the rising sun
     Made the swift clouds a glory every one. 
          A crushing whirl of wind and rain
     And eddying vapors, thunder-black, 
          Was mingling all the western plain
     With its own boiling rack;
     I saw the sunlight when it kiss'd
     The roughest edges of the mist, 
          And how the tattered hem
     Of the whirl'd clouds grew rosy as a gem.
     At first a blue eye, faint and very dim, 
     Seemed into light an instant's flash to swim —
          A serene eye that startled me
          With memories of infancy; 
     Then a white arm trembled out 
     From the white clouds' rolling rout, 
     Till a sudden smoke-wreath draped 
     The uncertain form, half-shaped;
          Meanwhile, over all, the sun 
     Flung his floods of rose and pearl, 
     And the noises of the whirl
          Grew harmonious one by one.

     When my eye had lost its wonder, 
And my ear grown heedless of the roar, 
     In a long pause of the falling thunder,
Came the angel-glimpses more and more.
          All the wide plain, where the storm 
     Trailed the cloudy foldings of its form,
          Twinkled with the glimpsing feet 
     Of most beautiful beings, seen 
          Momently, in musical beat, 
     Gliding tremulous and fleet 
          Along the reviving green,
     And their heaving bosoms heaved
          The white foldings of their vests, 
     Till a sudden whirl bereaved
     The delighted eye
          Of its radiant guests. 
     As they floated by, 
   Into vapor, suddenly.

Anon the bent arch of that three-fold bridge,
     Whose seven-fold colors glorify the world, 
Span'd with its light— from ridge to craggy ridge
     Of pier-like clouds embathed in gold — 
The kindling splendors which beneath it roll'd,
     Rounding with calm the loud life as it whirled j
     The long, curved sheets of rain 
Pictured against the western sky,

     Were bent like full sails as they swept the plain 
In intricate circles, which my open eye
     Yet knew to follow in their spiral mazes, 
That, intervolved, led on harmoniously, 
Twining their misty strands through never jarring phases.

Then as I looked to trace the bending line 
     Of falling rain, to the green plain,
Beneath each curved column a divine 
     And beautiful Being danced along the way, 
     Airy and delicate as ‘t were the spray
Of the crushed diamonds shivering on the grass,
And fashioned into form as the bright shower did pass.

          Each round her fellow whirled,
          Like little eddies curled 
     Around a Swan's white bosom, 
     Or waving Lily-blossom.

                    Everywhere,
          Floating, fluttering in the air, 
          Sparkling with a thousand hues, 
          Flashed their skirts of molten dews, 
          Radiant eyes and glorious faces 
          Lit at once a hundred places, — 
          Coming, going, fading, glowing, 
          Like the colors in the flowing 
          Stream of Autumn's noonday breath, 
Over the fluttering leaves arrayed by kingly Death. 
   Rounded arms of white entwined
     Veiled forms whose faintest traces 
   Would have maddened or struck blind
     Holy Art in days of wonder, 
   While the fair ones moved in chases,
     Wheeling, reeling, and crossing under 
   The waving shower-march, swept sublime
          In measured chime, 
     As they waltzed to the mellowed thunder.

          Lightest limbs of rarest moulds, 
          Pictured in the fluctuant folds 
          Of their skirts of pearl-light, seemed, 
               In their motions and their form,
          As if music, Angel-dreamed,
               Had leaped forth, alive and warm, 
To bear up the shapes of that harmonious storm. 
     Not rapider patter'd the drops that beat 
     On the kindling grass, than their sandaled feet, 
     Not lither the long grass reared its head 
     From the soft shower-fall than their buoyant tread. 
     Each graceful whirl of a single twain 
     Was type of the full dance that swept the plain,
          And the whole bright show,
          As it wheeled below 
     The span of the unmoved rainbow-arch, 
     Was type of the heavens and their starry march, 
     Rolling along, unjarring and grand, 
     Beneath the curve of God's bended hand.

     The grass grew green and beautiful as a gem
     Of emerald, and the flowers more clear 
Than rubies, when their lips could touch the hem
     Of those shower-angels' garments; all the sere 
Leaves of the forest glittered with the sheen
     Of dewy starlets, and enameled green, 
Which crowded all the boughs, while birds sang joy between.
     Though a few only saw the music-dance, 
And men but heard the wild crash of undoing; 
     With no revealings of the calm advance, 
     Saw but the diverse aims, or aimless whirls 
     Of Powers whose Maelstrom hung its billowy curls 
Over their homes with menaces of ruin,— 
     The serene band of beautiful Beings passed, 
     Too glad and loving to repine at men; 
Knowing the glories which their storm-waltz cast 
Lavishly round them, would compel at last 
     Human thanksgivings, though we murmured then.