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| ON 1 Tuesday last great Sol, with piercing eye, | |
| Pursued his journey through the vaulted sky, | |
| And in his car effulgent roll’d his way | |
| Four hours beyond the burning zone of day; | |
| When lo! a cloud, o’ershadowing all the plain, | 5 |
| From countless pores perspired a liquid rain, | |
| While from its cracks the lightnings made a peep, | |
| And chit-chat thunders rock’d our fears asleep. | |
| But soon the vapory fog dispersed in air, | |
| And left the azure blue-eyed concave bare: | 10 |
| Even the last drop of hope, which dripping skies | |
| Gave for a moment to our straining eyes, | |
| Like Boston rum, from heaven’s junk bottles broke, | |
| Lost all the corks, and vanish’d into smoke. | |
| But swift from worlds unknown, a fresh supply | 15 |
| Of vapor dimm’d the great horizon’s eye; | |
| The crazy clouds, by shifting zephyrs driven, | |
| Wafted their courses through the high-arch’d heaven, | |
| Till piled aloft in one stupendous heap, | |
| The seen and unseen worlds grew dark, and nature ’gan to weep. | 20 |
| Attendant lightnings stream’d their tails afar, | |
| And social thunders waked ethereal war, | |
| From dark deep pockets brought their treasured store, | |
| Embattled elements increased the roar— | |
| Red crinkling fires expended all their force, | 25 |
| And tumbling rumblings steer’d their headlong course. | |
| Those guarded frames by thunder poles secured, | |
| Though wrapp’d in sheets of flame, those sheets endured; | |
| O’er their broad roofs the fiery torrents roll’d, | |
| And every shingle seem’d of burning gold. | 30 |
| Majestic thunders, with disploding roar, | |
| And sudden crashing, bounced along the shore, | |
| Till, lost in other lands, the whispering sound | |
| Fled from our ears and fainted on the ground. | |
| Rain’s house on high its window sashes oped, | 35 |
| And out the cataract impetuous hopp’d, | |
| While the grand scene by far more grand appear’d, | |
| With lightnings never seen and thunders never heard. | |
| More salutary showers have not been known, | |
| To wash dame Nature’s dirty homespun gown— | 40 |
| For several weeks the good old Joan’s been seen, | |
| With filth bespatter’d like a lazy quean. | |
| The husbandman fast travelling to despair, | |
| Laid down his hoe and took his rocking chair: | |
| While his fat wife, the well and cistern dried, | 45 |
| Her mop grown useless, hung it up and cried. | |
| Two rainbows fair that Iris brought along, | |
| Pick’d from the choicest of her color’d throng; | |
| The first born deck’d in pristine hues of light, | |
| In all its native glories glowing bright, | 50 |
| The next adorn’d with less refulgent rays, | |
| But borrowing lustre from its brother’s blaze; | |
| Shone a bright reflex of those colors gay | |
| That deck’d with light creation’s primal day, | |
| When infant Nature lisp’d her earliest notes, | 55 |
| And younker Adam crept in petticoats: | |
| And to the people to reflection given, | |
| “The sons of Boston, the elect of heaven,” | |
| Presented Mercy’s angel smiling fair, | |
| Irradiate splendors frizzled in his hair, | 60 |
| Uncorking demi-johns, and pouring down | |
| Heaven’s liquid blessings on the gaping town. | |
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| N. B. At Cambridge town, the selfsame day, | |
| A barn was burnt well fill’d with hay. | |
| Some say the lightning turn’d it red, | 65 |
| Some say the thunder struck it dead, | |
| Some say it made the cattle stare, | |
| And some it kill’d an aged mare; | |
| But we expect the truth to learn, | |
| From Mr Wythe, who own’d the barn. | 70 |
