Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/75
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A POEM.
63
No pearly dews refresh the labouring ground;Dry are the leaves, and parched the herbs around;The tender flowers soft languish or expire,And crackling stalks reproach the scorching fire;The tuneful birds suppress the cheerful lay, 620And to hoarse grashoppers resign the day;While at each opening pore, the panting earth,Labouring with heat, breathes steaming vapours forth. Heaven's beauteous face a dismal darkness shrouds,And black descends a solid arch of clouds.The flocks forsake the fields in flowery pride,The silent birds in leafy coverts hide;The whispering winds are hushed, and dumb the flood,While nature faints before the frown of God.Terrific broods the gloom o'er boding earth, 630And swift the red-winged lightnings issue forth:Hoarse thunders far through heaven's wide regions roll,And crashing fragors burst from pole to pole:Heaven opening, glares at once: A boundless glowOf forked lightning floods the world below.It opes; it shuts; 'tis night and day by turns;Still thunders deepen; ether redder burns;Till all the struggling storms their prisons rend,And all at once the rushing clouds descend;