A Thunderstorm
A Thunderstorm
Original Text
The Poems of Archibald Lampman, ed. Duncan Campbell Scott (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1900): 214, as reprinted in The Poems of Archibald Lampman (including At the Long Sault), intro. by Margaret Coulby of Toronto Press, 1974), and from Alcyone (Ottawa: Ogilvy, 1899).
1A moment the wild swallows like a flight
2Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
3Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
4The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
5The hurrying centres of the storm unite
6And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
7Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
8Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height,
9With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
10And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
11Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
12That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
13Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
14Column on column comes the drenching rain.
Publication Start Year
1899
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997.
Rhyme
Form