Four Extracts From Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Hush! how heavily droops the night
In sultry silence, calm as death;
Gloomy and hot, and yet no light,
Save where the glow-worm wandereth;
For the moon hath stolen by,
Mantled in the stormy sky,
And there is a stillness strange,
An awful silence, boding change,
As if live Nature held her breath,
And all in agony listeneth
Some terror undefined to hear,
Coming, coming, coming near!
Hush'd is the beetle's drowsy hum,
And the death-watch's roll on his warning drum,
Hush'd the raven, and screech-owl,
And the famishing wolf on his midnight prowl
Silent as death.
Hark, hark! he is here; he has come from afar,
The black-robed Storm in his terrible car;
Vivid the forked lightning flashes,
Quick behind the thunder crashes,
Clattering hail, and shingly flood,
Rattles like grape-shot in the wood;
And the whole forest is bent one way,
Bowing as slaves to a tyrant's sway,
While the foot of the tempest hath trampled and broke
Many a stout old elm and oak!