
Detail from Saul and the Witch of Endor, 1777 by Benjamin West (1738-1820)

Detail from Saul and the Witch of Endor, 1777 by Benjamin West (1738-1820)
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

King Lear, 1788/1806 by Benjamin West (1738–1820)