Read "The Cyclone" by James Whitcomb Riley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
So lone I stood, the very trees seemed drawn / In conference with themselves. -- Intense -- intense / Seemed everything; -- the summer splendor on / The sight, -- magnificence!
A babe's life might not lighter fail and die / Than failed the sunlight -- Though the hour was noon, / The palm of midnight might not lighter lie / Upon the brow of June.
With eyes upraised, I saw the underwings / Of swallows -- gone the instant afterward -- / While from the elms there came strange twitterings, / Stilled scarce ere they were heard.
The river seemed to shiver; and, far down / Its darkened length, I saw the sycamores / Lean inward closer, under the vast frown / That weighed above the shores.
Then was a roar, born of some awful burst! -- / And one lay, shrieking, chattering, in my path -- / Flung -- he or I -- out of some space accurst / As of Jehovah's wrath:
Nor barely had he wreaked his latest prayer, / Ere back the noon flashed o'er the ruin done, / And, o'er uprooted forests touseled there, / The birds sang in the sun.