THAT flying angel's torrent cry Will hurl the mountains through the sky! A wind like fifty winds at once Through the bedragoned kingdom runs, An army of rain slants icy stings At many a wretch afield who clings His cloak of straw, with glistening spines Like a prodigious porcupine's. The reptile grasses by his path Wind sleek as unction from that Wrath Which with a glassy claw uproots The broad-leaved @3kiri@1, flays and loots Torn and snarled sinews, leaves for dead The young crops with the shining head, While blotched blunt melons darkly dot The slaughtered swathes like cannon-shot. The lotus in each pond upheaves Its sacred, slow, appealing leaves, And many a bush with wrestling jerk Defies the daemon's murderous work -- Yet nature stares white-lipped, to read In Chance's eye what desperate deed? A kinder god discerns, replies, And stills the land's storm-shouts to sighs; The clouds in massy folds apart Disclose the day's bright bleeding heart, Huge plumes and scarves black-tossing wide As if a Kubla Khan had died! From flame to flame the vision glows, Till all the pools of heaven unclose The lotus-light, the hue, the balm Of wisdom infinitely calm. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SWORD AND THE SICKLE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE BRAVEST BATTLE by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER MUTABILITY (2) by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE MAGPIES IN PICARDY by T. P. CAMERON WILSON TO THE SMALL CELANDINE (1) by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE END OF THE SUNSET TRAIL by ALMA C. BINGHAM |