Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LIGHTNING, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LIGHTNING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ere we be stricken blind to certain dreams
Last Line: Through following thunder and the driving rain!
Subject(s): Lightning; Lightning Rods


Ere we be stricken blind to certain dreams,
Thank God there is a wild particular light
Flashes upon us from the relenting height
Of honest heaven! At such an hour, it seems,
We gazed on patterned fields and shrunken streams
From our warm mountain, with the infinite
Royal about us, as the fabled, bright
Gods of Olympus scanned their Attic demes.

And then -- cloud-shadows chilled us, and the sun
Was gone. Yet at the moment of my pain
A vivid sheet of lightning showed you clear
Against the eclipse. Lost? Aye, but rapt from one
Who laughed for immortal rapture of you, dear,
Through following thunder and the driving rain!





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