Classic Poem

It comes with its swift, destructive tread,
It tosses the waves on high,
And it hurries away where the lightnings play,
Through the black and frowning sky;
And the weeping clouds are madly driven
By its violent breath, o'er the face of heaven.

It leaps through the woods in its fearless flight,
Uprooting the firm-set trees;
And it shivers the trunk of the kingly oak,
That had long defied the breeze;
Hurling down, in its furious mirth,
These tough and sturdy limbs to earth.

Away it flies, with a maniac howl,
To the mountains' dismal height,
And it lifts the rocks from their granite beds,
By the force of its giant might;
Waking the birds from their brief repose,
And spreading dismay where'er it goes!