Storm On Lake Asquam

A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw     On Carmel prophesying rain, began     To lift itself oer wooded Cardigan,     Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw     Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat     Down the long valleys murmuring pines, and woke     The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke     Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains feet.     Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept     Over 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,     Chocoruas tall, defiant sentinel     Looked 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 crescents tinted streak     A far-off picture of the Melvin peak,     Spent broken clouds the rainbows angel spanned.