High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending
High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars,
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.
All down the mountain sides wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the life-giving wind,
Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending,
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending,
Wider and deeper their waters extending,
Leaving a desolate desert behind.
Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,
Changing forever from midnight to noon;
Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,
Lighning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.
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Source. Information about the poet here. The illustration is "London from Hampstead Heath in a storm; with a double rainbow" by John CONSTABLE, Great Britain (1776 – 1837) and dates from June 1831. It now belongs to British Museum, London, gift of Isabel Constable in 1888. More Constable paintings here.
