[10]

THE TORNADO.

God let me fall from His hand

One day at His forge when the elemental world

Was shaping. I am but a breath from His great bellows,

But here among the workshops of mankind

I am a fateful scourge.

I tear red strips from the proud cities of men;

I name my passage the Highway of Instant Death;

I splinter world-old forests with my laugh,

And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into Orion's eyes.

I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars,

And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips

As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid crew,

The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the heart of a coward,

Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on the sea-floor,

And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray upon the straining decks

Till comes my mood to end them, and I strew the racing foam with wreckage.

[11]

I am a breath from God's forge. I remember His awful workshop,

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