William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
A Ballad: The loud wind roard, and fast the rainAlonzo Lewis (17941861)
T
Descended from on high,
The angry billows rush’d amain,
And darkness veil’d the sky.
And sighing to be free,
Was seated on a rocky cliff
That overlook’d the sea.
That stretch’d beneath his eye,
The white sea-gull was heard to screech,
While soaring round on high.
Her lovely soul benign,
But death had snatch’d the maid away,
And left him to repine.
Ye loud winds roar!” he cried;
“And faster still, ye lightnings, flash,
And spread your horrors wide!”
That such a thing should be!
That youth should turn aside to vice,
And lose its hope in thee!
And louder shriek’d the bird;
While frequent from an unseen bark
The minute-gun was heard.
He shuts his weary eyes;
Hoarse thunder rumbles o’er his head,
And sheeted lightning flies.
He waked with stifled breath;
A bolt shot from the impending cloud,
And seal’d his eyes in death.