Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Thunder
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—Childe Harold. Canto III. St. 92.
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—Heaven and Earth. Pt. I. Sc. 3.
Loud roared the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge showers.
Andrew Cherry—Bay of Biscay.
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o’er our fallen house.
Keats—Hyperion. L. 60.
As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning
And a cry of lamentation,
Repeated and again repeated,
Deep and loud
As the reverberation
Of cloud answering unto cloud,
Swells and rose away in the distance,
As if the sheeted
Lightning retreated,
Baffled and thwarted by the wind’s resistance.
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Epilogue. L. 62.
The thunder,
Wing’d with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 174.
To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning?
King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 33.
Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 234.
The thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc’d
The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.
Tempest. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 97.
C’est l’éclair qui paraît, la foudre va partir.
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
Voltaire—Oreste. II. 7.