Oriental Scenes, Dramatic Sketches and Tales/The Land Storm
THE LAND STORM.
The heavens are cloudless, and the sunny plain
Rich with its fertile tracts of sugar-cane,
Its fleecy crops of cotton, corn, and oil,
And all the myriad plants that gem the soil,
Yielding their precious juice in costly dyes
Bright as the rain-bow tints of their own skies,
Smile in the golden light—a wide expanse
Of varied landscape where the sun-beams glance
O'er dotting mango topes, and snow white mhuts,
Which peep beside the peasants' straw-thatched huts.
Beyond, in eastern splendour beaming bright
The city stands upon a wooded height;
Its tall pagodas, and its broad Serais,
Shining, like pearls amid the noon-tide, blaze;
While from each terrace shooting up afar
Gleams the proud mosque, and pinnacled minar
Surmounted by those graceful coronals,
The palm tree flings above the sculptured walls
Its drooping foliage, beautifully blent,
With tower and spire, and marble pediment.
The air is still—there's not the faintest sigh
Breathed from a vagrant zephyr wandering by;
The panting buffalo, oppressed with heat,
Roams o'er the plain to seek some cool retreat;
The fainting bullocks drop upon the roads,
And weary camels sink beneath their loads.
The sultriness encreases—soaring high,
Rending the air with shriek and doleful cry,
The startled birds from jungle, jheel, and brake,
Their native haunts instinctively forsake;
Yet one small cloud of darkest blue alone
Appears above the distant horizon;
And all around is calm—now rushing forth
In billowy masses from the smoking earth,
Volumes of sand in wild confusion rise
And lift their summits to the darkening skies;
A lurid veil the city's pomp enshrouds,
And now in wrathful guise the sable clouds
Come rolling on—yet still throughout the plain
No breath of air precedes the hurricane,
And a thick darkness falls, and blinding dust,
Till suddenly in one tempestuous gust
The whirl-wind bursts—drowning the stunning sound
Of pealing thunder crashing all around.
Unheeded mid the horrid dissonance
And smothering sand, the forked lightnings dance;
Yet the storm gathers strength, and each wild blast
Seems armed with fiercer madness than the last.
And still the raging elements contend;
And urges on the strife the tempest fiend,
Deepening the gloom, and yelling o'er the fanes
Where whirl-winds roar, and chaos madly reigns;
At length the darkness yields; an awful ray,
Of fiery light denotes returning day.
And now in flashing torrents o'er the plain
Descends like cataracts the tropic rain;
The air is cooled, by gentle breezes fanned—
The dust disperses, and a zephyr bland,
Where late the tempest raged, with wooing breath
Draws perfume from each freshly flowering wreath;
Spreading their plumes o'er diamond-dropping sprays
The birds are pouring forth their sweetest lays;
The buffalo comes rushing from the wood,
And snorts, and plunges in the welcome flood;
And the parched earth rejoices—and the plain
Is rife with life and happiness again.