Now a thunder storm will command respect

   Wherever the lightning flashes;

But the wickedest place in a storm I know

   Is on top of a mountain in Idaho,

Where Jupiter Pluvius lets her go,

   And Thor with his thunder crashes.

 

You sit in a shack with a roof of tin

   And a stovepipe a-stickin' thru,

A telephone line and some iron tie prods,

   Defying the two above-mentioned gods

To melt that assortment of lightning rods,

   And sizzle your carcass, too.

 

The lookout is held to the topmost rock,

   With glass all around to show,

In the blinding flashes, a tree outside

   With a lightning splinter along one side,

And a glimpse of a chasm both steep and wide

   For thousands of feet below.

 

The clouds roll'd down on that mountain top

   To scatter their charge of fire,

The telephone wiring would snap and crack

   And St. Elmo's fire on the lookout shack

Would flash from the wire to the roof and back

   Suggesting my funeral pyre.

 

Then the clatter of hail on the broad tin roof

   And the howl of the whooping gale

Were drowned in the thunder that ripped & rolled

   Rattled and echoed a thousand fold

'Til my hair stood up and my blood ran cold

   And even my tan grew pale.

 

You may tell of prayers that are said in church

   And those that are said in bed:

If the prayers that I made for my wicked past

   And the good resolutions I made so fast

Had been only partially made to last,

   What a different life I'd 'a led!

 

But since my return from that lookout shack

   No lightning that flashes here,

No thunder that rolls and no gale that blows

   No hail that rattles, or sleets or snows

Can add one bit to my tale of woes;

   I've a paralyzed sense of fear.

 

   G.A.B.

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