A Hymn of Empire and Other Poems

by Frederick George Scott

 

THE STORM

 
O GRIP the earth, ye forest trees,
    Grip well the earth to-night,
The Storm-God rides across the seas
    To greet the morning light.

All clouds that wander through the skies
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    Are tangled in his net,
The frightened stars have shut their eyes,
    The breakers fume and fret.

The birds that cheer the woods all day
    Now tremble in their nests,
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The giant branches round them sway,
    The wild wind never rests.

The squirrel and the cunning fox
    Have hurried to their holes,
Far off, like distant earthquake shocks,
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    The muffled thunder rolls.

In scores of hidden woodland dells,
    Where no rough winds can harm,
The timid wild-flowers toss their bells
    In reasonless alarm.
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Only the mountains rear their forms,
    Silent and grim and bold;
To them the voices of the storms,
    Are as a tale re-told.

They saw the stars in heaven hung,
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    They heard the great Sea’s birth,
They know the ancient pain that wrung
    The entrails of the Earth.

Sprung from great Nature’s royal lines,
    They share her deep repose,—
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Their rugged shoulders robed in pines,
    Their foreheads crowned with snows.

But now there comes a lightning flash,
    And now on hill and plain
The charging clouds in fury dash,
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    And blind the world with rain.