THROUGH the woods of Morrua and over its root-knotted flooring, The hero speeds onward, alone, on his terrible message; When faint and far-off, like the gathering gallop of battle, The hoofs of the hurricane louder and louder come leaping, There's a gasp and a silence around him, a swooning of nature, And the forest trees moan, and complain with a presage of evil. And nearer, like great organ's wailing, high-piping through thunder, Subsiding, then lifted again to a thousand-tongued tumult, And crashing, and deafening and yelling in clangorous uproar. Soaring onward, down-riding, and rending the wreck of its conquest, The tempest swoops on: all the branches before it bend, singing Like cordage in shipwreck; before it sear leaves fly like vapour; Before it bow down like wide armies, plumed heads of the forest, In frenzy dark-rolling, up-tossing their scathed arms like Maenads. Dizzy lightnings split this way and that in the blind void above him; For a moment long passages reeling and wild with the tempest, In the blue map and dazzle of lightning, throb vivid and vanish; And white glare the wrinkles and knots of the oaktrees beside him, While close overhead clap the quick mocking palms of the Storm-Fiend. |