A Storm In Summer

Nature that day a woman was in weakness,
A woman in her impotent high wrath.
At the dawn we watched it, a low cloud half seen
Under the sun; an innocent child's face
It seemed to us rose--red and fringed with light
Boding no hurt, a pure translucent cloud,
Deep in the East where the Sun's disk began.
We did not guess what strengths in it were pent,
What terrors of rebellion. An hour more,
And it had gathered volume and the form
Of a dark mask, the she--wolf's of old Rome,
The ears, the brow, the cold unpitying eyes,
Through which gleams flashed. And, as we watched, the roll
Of thunder from a red throat muttering
Gave menace of the wild beast close at hand.
Anon a wall of darkness in the South
Black to the Zenith, and a far--off wail,
The wind among the trees.--And then, behold,
Flying before it a mad clamorous rout
Of peewits, starlings, hawks, crows, dishwashers,
Blackbirds and jays, by hundreds, scattering,
While the Earth trembled holding as it were its breath;
Till suddenly an answer from the ground,
And the fields shook and a new mighty roar
Crashed through the oaks, and in a pent--up flow
The storm's rage broke in thunder overhead,
And all the anger of the passionate heaven
Burst into tears.