It struck me every day
   The lightning was as new
As if the cloud that instant slit
   And let the fire through.

It burned me in the night,
   It blistered in my dream;
It sickened fresh upon my sight
   With every morning's beam.

I thought that storm was brief, —
   The maddest, quickest by;
But Nature lost the date of this,
   And left it in the sky.