Again, greater darkness enveloped the trembling earth.  Anon, the heavens were rent with lightning, which nothing could have quenched but the descending deluge.  Cataracts poured down from the lowering firmament.  For an instant, the horses dashed madly forward; beast and rider blinded and stifled by the gushing rain, and gasping for breath.  Shelter was nowhere.  The quivering beasts reared, and snorted, and sank upon their knees, dismounting their riders.

He had scarcely spoken, when there burst forth a terrific noise, they knew not what; a rush, they could not understand; a vibration which shook them on their horses.  Every terror sank before the roar of the cataract.  It seemed that the mighty mountain, unable to support its weight of waters, shook to the foundation.  A lake had burst upon its summit, and the cataract became a falling ocean.  The source of the great deep appeared to be discharging itself over the range of mountains; the great gray peak tottered on its foundation!—­It shook!—­it fell! and buried in its ruins the castle, the village, and the bridge!

V. AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM. (72)

James Thomson, 1700-1748, the son of a clergyman, was born in Scotland.  He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and intended to follow the profession of his father, but never entered upon the duties of the sacred office.  In 1724 he went to London, where he spent most of his subsequent life.  He had shown some poetical talent when it boy; and, in 1826, he published “Winter,” a part of a longer poem, entitled “The Seasons,” the best known of all his works.  He also wrote several plays for the stage; none of them, however, achieved any great success.  In the last year of his life, he published his “Castle of Indolence,” the most famous of his works excepting “The Seasons.”  Thomson was heavy and dull in his personal appearance, and was indolent in his habits.  The moral tone of his writings is always good.  This extract is from “The Seasons.” ###

  As from the face of heaven the shattered clouds

Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky
Sublimer swells, and o’er the world expands
A purer azure.

           Through the lightened air
  A higher luster and a clearer calm,
  Diffusive, tremble; while, as if in sign
  Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,
  Set off abundant by the yellow ray,
  Invests the fields; and nature smiles revived.

  ’T is beauty all, and grateful song around,

Joined to the low of kine, and numerous bleat
Of flocks thick-nibbling through the clovered vale: 
And shall the hymn be marred by thankless man,
Most favored; who, with voice articulate,
Should lead the chorus of this lower world?

    Shall man, so soon forgetful of the Hand
  That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky,
  Extinguished fed that spark the tempest waked,
  That sense of powers exceeding far his own,
  Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears?