Ebenezer Elliott: Verses about Weather

The lightning, like an Arab, cross'd
The moon's dark path on high,
And wild on Rivelin writhed and toss'd
The stars and troubled sky,
Where lone the tree of ages grew,
With branches wide and tall;
Ah! who, when such a tempest blew,
Could hear his stormy fall?
But now the skies, the stars are still,
The blue wave sleeps again,
And heath and moss, by rock and rill,
Are whispering, in disdain,
That Rivelin's side is desolate,
Her giant in the dust!
Beware, O Power! for God is great,
O Guilt! for God is just!
And boast not, Pride! while millions pine,
That wealth secures thy home;
The storm that shakes all hearths but thine
Is not the storm to come.
The tremor of the stars is pale,
The dead clod quakes with fear,
The worm slinks down, o'er hill and vale,
When God in wroth draws near.
But if the Upas will not bend
Beneath the frown of Heaven,
A whisper cometh, which shall rend
What thunder hath not riven.

Sweet village! where my early days were pass'd,
Though parted long, we meet, we meet at last!
Like friends, imbrown'd by many a sun and wind,
Much changed in mien, but more in heart and mind,
Fair, after many years, thy fields appear,
With joy beheld, but not without a tear.
I met thy little river miles before
I saw again my natal cottage door:
Unchanged as truth, the river welcomed home
The wanderer of the sea's heart-breaking foam;
But the changed cottage, like a time-tried friend,
Smote on my heart-strings, at my journey's end.
For now no lilies bloom the door beside!
The very house-leek on the roof hath died;
The window'd gable's ivy bower is gone,
The rose departed from the porch of stone;
The pink, the violet, have fled away,
The polyanthus and auricula!
And round my home, once bright with flowers, I found
Not one square yard, one foot of garden ground.
Path of the quiet fields! that oft of yore
Call'd me at morn on Shenstone's page to pore;
Oh! poor man's pathway! where, 'at evening's close,'
He stopp'd to pluck the woodbine and the rose,
Shaking the dew-drop from the wild-brier bowers,
That stoop'd beneath their load of summer flowers,
Then eyed the west, still bright with fading flame,
As whistling homeward by the wood he came;
Sweet, dewy, sunny, flowery footpath, thou
Art gone for ever, like the poor man's cow!
No more the wandering townsman's Sabbath smile,
No more the hedger, waiting on the stile
For tardy Jane; no more the muttering bard,
Startling the heifer near the lone farm-yard;
No more the pious youth, with book in hand,
Spelling the words he fain would understand,-
Shall bless thy mazes, when the village bell
Sounds o'er the river, soften'd up the dell.
Here youngling fishers, in the grassy lane,
Purloin'd their tackle from the brood-mare's mane;
And truant urchins, by the river's brink,
Caught the fledged throstle as it stoop'd to drink;
Or with the ramping colt, all joyous play'd,
Or scared the owlet in the blue-ball shade.