Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A cloud, like that the old-time hebrew saw
Last Line: Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.
Subject(s): Asquam, Lake; Lakes; Storms; Pools; Ponds


A CLOUD, like that the old-time Hebrew saw
On Carmel prophesying rain, began
To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw

Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.

Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept
Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range;
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange.
From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.

One moment, as if challenging the storm,
Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel
Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.

And over all the still unhidden sun,
Weaving its light through slantblown veils of rain,
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain;
And, when the tumult and the strife were done,

With one foot on the lake, and one on land,
Framing within his crescent's tinted streak
A far-off picture of the Melvin peak,
Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.





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