Original - Duke Divinity School

The Lord of Nature fram’d the show’ry Bow,
Turn’d its gay Arch, and bade its Colours glow;
Its radiant Circle compasses the Skies,
And sweetly the rich Tinctures faint, and rise;
It bids the Horrors of the Storm to cease,
Adorns the Clouds, and makes the Tempest please.
He, when embattled Clouds in black Array,
O’er the wide Heav’ns their gloomy fronts display;
Pours down a watry Deluge from on high,
And opens all the Sluices of the Sky; … 156
Mean time dreadfully bright the Light’nings glare,
And Bursts of Thunder rend th’encumber’d Air;
At once the Thunders of th’Almighty sound,
Heav’n low’rs, descends the Torrent, rocks the Ground.
He gives the furious Whirlwind Wings to fly,
To rend the Earth, and wheel along the Sky;
In circling Eddies whirl’d, it roars aloud,
Drives Wave on Wave, and dashes Cloud on Cloud;
Where’er it moves, it lays whole Forests low,
And at the Blast, eternal Mountains bow;
While their torn Sands in darkly Volumes rise, 157
And half the Desart mounts the burthen’d Skies.
He from aërial Treasures downward pours
Sheets of unsullied 158 Snow in lucid Show’rs,
Flake after Flake, thro’ Air thick-wavering flies,
Till one vast shining Waste all Nature lies;
Then the proud Hills a Virgin Whiteness shed,
A dazzling Brightness glitters from the Mead:
The hoary Trees reflect a silver Show,
And Groves beneath the lovely Burden bow. … 159
156 Wesley omits here, but restores in MSP and AM:
The rushing Torrents drown the floated Ground, / The Mountains tremble and the Plains resound.
Meantime from every Region of the Sky / Red burning Bolts of forky Vengeance Fly.
Dreadfully bright o’er Sea and Earth they glare ...
157Wesley restores this line in MSP and AM to its original in Broome: “While tearing up the Sands, in Drifts
they Rise.”
158In MSP (but not in AM) Wesley returns to Broome’s spelling: “unsully’d.”
159 Wesley omits a six-line stanza here, in MSP, and in AM.
96