MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

By Charles Sangster


 

THE WHIRLWIND.



It comes with its swift, destructive tread,
     It tosses the waves on high,
And it hurries away where the lightnings play,
     Through the black and frowning sky;
And the weeping clouds are madly driven

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By its violent breath, o’er the face of heaven.

It leaps through the woods in its fearless flight,
     Uprooting the firm-set trees; [Page 112]
And it shivers the trunk of the kingly oak,
     That had long defied the breeze;

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Hurling down, in its furious mirth,
These tough and sturdy limbs to earth.

Away it flies, with a maniac howl,
     To the mountains’ dismal height,
And it lifts the rocks from their granite beds,

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     By the force of its giant might;
Waking the birds from their brief repose,
And spreading dismay where’er it goes! [Page 113]