The Lantern

Book 66

PG

And think divinities are working there.

Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse,

Solace of mortals and delight of gods,

Point out the course before me, as I race

On to the white line of the utmost goal,

That I may get with signal praise the crown,

With thee my guide!

GREAT METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA, ETC.

And so in first place, then,

With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,

Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,

Together clash, what time 'gainst one another

The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes

From out the serene regions of the sky;

But wheresoever in a host more dense

The clouds foregather, thence more often comes

A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,

Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame

As stones and timbers, nor again so fine

As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce

They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,

Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be

To keep their mass, or to retain within

Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth

O'er skiey levels of the spreading world