The Hurricane

By Stewart Carrick, 1944

So sultry and breathless the weather; Big sweat-drops like overgrown pearls.

Just look at all that mildewed leather— Just see how your calendar curls!

The sky is a copper-grey colour, We’re in for a good blow, all right.

The daylight gets duller and duller— We’ll bar all the windows ’fore night.

The glass is as low as the devil, The wind comes in straight off the sea, All Nature awaits something evil— And looks as if she’d like to flee!

The coconut-palms give first warning; Their graceful heads bend like a flower.

Their leaves will be ragged by morning, Their fruit blown away in an hour.

The wind now is howling like blazes, It sounds like the devil in pain!

The strength of the brute just amazes— For this is our first hurricane.

Great trees are just toppling in batches.

The nuts are all scattered around.

Huge branches are torn off like matches And flung far and wide o’er the ground.

The noise all around is appalling; You shout out to make yourself heard.

It seems that the heavens are falling, And no one can make out a word.

The rain shoots in, straight as an arrow, Parallel with the ground, from the sea, The window-panes have such a narrow Squeak—sounded like hailstones to me.

The noise under foot is tremendous, The house was raised well off the ground.

We certainly thought it would end us — This wild beast that went round and round.

Just once in a life would be ample— Such catastrophes are, so I hear— But I’m told that it’s only a sample, Of what to expect once a year!