Misgivings

Herman Melville

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.