Sturmwarnungen

Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!

And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.

They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray—
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.

He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!—
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.

Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where’er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.

What roar is that?—’tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.

Das Gedicht The Hurricane ist von dem amerikanischen Dichter ➱William Cullen Bryant. Es wurde 1827 geschrieben, im Jahre 1854 konnten auch die deutschen ➱Leser es lesen: To the reader. I have been asked to consent that an edition of my poems should be published at Dessau in Germany, solely for circulation on the continent of Europe. To this request I have the more readily yielded, inasmuch as the reputation enjoyed by the gentleman under whose inspection the volume will pass through the press, assures me that the edition will be faithfully and minutely accurate. New York, November 2, 1853. William Cullen Bryant. Es ist erstaunlich, wie beliebt Bryant damals selbst in Europa war.

Das schöne Bild eines aufziehenden Sturms ist von dem amerikanischen ➱Luministen Fitz Hugh Lane. Es wurde 1860 gemalt, im gleichen Jahr schrieb Herman Melville sein ➱Gedicht Misgivings, das auch von einem Sturm handelt:

When ocean-clouds over inland hills
Sweep storming in late autumn brown,
And horror the sodden valley fills,
And the spire falls crashing in the town,
I muse upon my country’s ills—
The tempest bursting from the waste of Time
On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime.

Nature’s dark side is heeded now—
(Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown)—
A child may read the moody brow
Of yon black mountain lone.
With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,
And storms are formed behind the storm we feel:
The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

Melvilles Sturm wird wenige Monate später kommen, es ist ein Sturm, der die ganze Nation erschüttert: der amerikanische Bürgerkrieg. Misgivings ist nach ➱The Portent das erste Gedicht des ➱Gedichtbandes Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War. Uns steht ein Sturm bevor, noch ist alles ruhig. Das Barometer steht noch bei Fair, es fällt, ist aber noch nicht bei Stormy. Warten wir es ab, lassen wir uns nicht von der Hysterie anstecken, die die Medien verbreiten. Es ist die Zeit der Äquinoktialstürme, hier oben im Norden sind wir so etwas gewöhnt.

Lesen Sie auch: ➱Hochwasser.