“Not here! oh not here, amid this awful solitude.”
Then amid the silence around, upon distant hills his words echoed:
“Not here! oh not here,” till with the echoing and re-echoing rock, the idle wilderness was peopled with voices.
Suddenly the echo voices ceased.
From the lurid sky broke the terrible sound of the thunder peal. Along the distant skies it rolled. Far away over the endless ring of the grey horizon it swept-going and returning-pealing-swelling-dying away. It traversed the aether, muttering now in ominous sound as of threats, and anon crashing with the voice of dread command.
In its roar came a sound as of a word:
“Onward.”
To his knees the Poet sank and welcomed with tears of joy the sound of the thunder. It swept away as a Power from Above the silent desolation of the
