Poems of Nature (Whittier)/Storm on Lake Asquam

by John Greenleaf Whittier

A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew sawOn Carmel prophesying rain, beganTo lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,Growing and blackening. Suddenly a flaw

Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beatDown the long valley's murmuring pines, and wokeThe noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and brokeIts smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.

Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness sweptOver 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 sentinelLooked 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 slant-blown 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 streakA far-off picture of the Melvin peak,Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.