Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War/"The Coming Storm"

by Herman Melville

For works with similar titles, see The Coming Storm.

 

"The Coming Storm:"
A Picture by S. R. Gifford, and owned by E. B. Included in the N. A. Exhibition, April, 1865.

 

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All feeling hearts must feel for him
Who felt this picture. Presage dim—
Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere
Fixed him and fascinated here.

A demon-cloud like the mountain one
Burst on a spirit as mild
As this urned lake, the home of shades.
But Shakspeare's pensive child

Never the lines had lightly scanned,
Steeped in fable, steeped in fate;
The Hamlet in his heart was 'ware,
Such hearts can antedate.

No utter surprise can come to him
Who reaches Shakspeare's core;
That which we seek and shun is there—
Man's final lore.