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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LIGHTNING by WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Poet Analysis

First Line: ERE WE BE STRICKEN BLIND TO CERTAIN DREAMS
Last Line: THROUGH FOLLOWING THUNDER AND THE DRIVING RAIN!
Subject(s): LIGHTNING; LIGHTNING RODS;

Ere we be stricken blind to certain dreams,
Thank God there is a wild particular light
Flashes upon us from the relenting height
Of honest heaven! At such an hour, it seems,
We gazed on patterned fields and shrunken streams
From our warm mountain, with the infinite
Royal about us, as the fabled, bright
Gods of Olympus scanned their Attic demes.

And then -- cloud-shadows chilled us, and the sun
Was gone. Yet at the moment of my pain
A vivid sheet of lightning showed you clear
Against the eclipse. Lost? Aye, but rapt from one
Who laughed for immortal rapture of you, dear,
Through following thunder and the driving rain!



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