Summer Thunderstorms

 It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely. Mark Twain

 Now and then a faint thunder-whisper is heard. The cloud masses gather like revolutionary armies marching up to battle. Volleys tell when divisions join, and the lightning that announces them is as if the adamantine arch were riven, disclosing dread splendors unspeakable. Most grand, most beautiful storm! Then new music — that of the delicious rain, and in such abundance that it washes away the very memory of the parched and burning day. Caroline M. Kirkland, "June Twenty-Ninth, Eighteen Fifty-Nine," 1859