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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Storm

The storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and billows.

Schiller.

  • Unsparing as the scourge of war,
  • Blasts follow blasts, and groves dismantled roar.
  • Bloomfield.

  • A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
  • Ploughed through the brine, and from these solitudes
  • Sent Silence frightened.
  • T. B. Aldrich.

  • The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
  • Or low with sobs of pain,—
  • The thunder-organ of the cloud,
  • The dropping tears of rain.
  • Whittier.

    It is a tempest in a tumbler of water.

    Paul, Grand-Duc de Russie.

    It is the flash which appears, the thunder bolt will follow.

    Voltaire.

  • Loud roared the dreadful thunder,
  • The rain a deluge showers.
  • Andrew Cherry.

  • Blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
  • The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
  • Shakespeare.

  • The clouds are scudding across the moon,
  • A misty light is on the sea;
  • The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune,
  • And the foam is flying free.
  • Bayard Taylor.

  • A red morn that ever yet betoken’d
  • Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
  • Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
  • Gust and foul flaws to herdsmen and to herds.
  • Shakespeare.

  • The poplars showed
  • The white of their leaves, the amber grain
  • Shrunk in the wind,—and the lightning now
  • Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!
  • T. B. Aldrich.

  • The winds grow high;
  • Impending tempests charge the sky;
  • The lightning flies, the thunder roars;
  • And big waves lash the frightened shores.
  • Prior.

  • Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
  • You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
  • Till you have drench’d our steeples.
  • Shakespeare.

  • Roads are wet where’er one wendeth,
  • And with rain the thistle bendeth,
  • And the brook cries like a child!
  • Not a rainbow shines to cheer us;
  • Ah! the sun comes never near us,
  • And the heavens look dark and wild.
  • Mary Howitt.

  • I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
  • Have riv’d the knotty oaks, and I have seen
  • The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
  • To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds
  • But never till tonight, never till now,
  • Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
  • Shakespeare.

  • We often see, against some storm,
  • A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
  • The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
  • As hush as death.
  • Shakespeare.

  • Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still,
  • Are howling from the mountain’s bosom:
  • There’s not a breath of wind upon the hill,
  • Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom:
  • Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.
  • Byron.

  • Merciful Heaven,
  • Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
  • Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
  • Than the soft myrtle.
  • Shakespeare.

  • Lightnings, that show the vast and foamy deep,
  • The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
  • The loud, loud winds, that o’er the billows sweep—
  • Shake the firm nerve, appal the bravest soul!
  • Mrs. Radcliffe.

  • A thousand miles from land are we,
  • Tossing about on the roaring sea—
  • From billow to bounding billow cast,
  • Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:
  • The sails are scattered abroad, like weeds;
  • The strong masts shake, like quivering reeds;
  • The mighty cables, and iron chains,
  • The hull, which all earthly strength disdains—
  • They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
  • Their natural hard proud strength disown.
  • Barry Cornwall.

  • Defeating oft the labors of the year,
  • The sultry South collects a potent blast.
  • At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir
  • Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
  • Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
  • But as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
  • And in one mighty stream, invisible,
  • Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
  • Impetuous rushes o’er the sounding world.
  • Thomson.

  • Flash!
  • Lightning, I swear!—there’s a tempest brewing!
  • Crash!
  • Thunder, too—swift-footed lightning pursuing!
  • The leaves are troubled, the winds drop dead,
  • The air grows ruminant overhead—
  • Splash!
  • That great round drop fell pat on my nose.
  • Flash! crash! splash!—
  • I must run for it, I suppose.
  • O what a flashing, and crashing, and splashing,
  • The earth is rocking, the skies are riven—
  • Jove in a passion, in god-like fashion,
  • Is breaking the crystal urns of heaven.
  • Robert Buchanan.

  • The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,
  • And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
  • Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
  • Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
  • From peak to peak the rattling crags among
  • Leaps the live thunder!
  • Byron.

  • Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,
  • And swell’d with tempests on the ship descends;
  • White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
  • Howl o’er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
  • Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears;
  • And instant death on every wave appears.
  • Homer.

  • At first, heard solemn o’er the verge of heaven,
  • The Tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
  • And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
  • The Lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
  • The Noise astounds; till overhead a sheet
  • Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts,
  • And opens wider; shuts and opens still
  • Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
  • Follows the loose’d aggravated Roar,
  • Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal,
  • Crush’d, horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
  • Thomson.

  • A boding silence reigns,
  • Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
  • That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
  • Rolls o’er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
  • And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath.
  • Prone, to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes
  • Descend; the tempest-loving raven scarce
  • Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze,
  • The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
  • Cast a deploring eye; by man forsook
  • Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
  • Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
  • Thomson.