Autograph Manuscript of the poem 'The Thunder Storm', in the autograph of its author William Bourne Oliver Peabody.

2pp., 12mo. Fair, on aged paper. In pencil at head: 'Autograph of the Rev W. B. O. Peabody'. In ink in a contemporary hand, between the title and body of text: 'Autograph of Mr Peabody '. Twenty-four lines, arranged in three eight-line stanzas. The text presented here differs in certain respects from that printed in A. P. Putnam's 'Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith' (1875). In the present version the first stanza reads: 'Black the heaven is overcast! | Breathless is the sultry blast. | Nature all in silence keeping | Still as if the world were sleeping; | Then the red and fiery flash | Heralds forth the angry crash | Of the echoes long and loud | Rolling from the thunder cloud.' There are three differences between manuscript and printed text. The first two lines of the second stanza in the printed text - 'Then the storm pours forth its power. | Then comes down the rattling shower,' - read as follows in this manuscript version: 'Now the storm pours forth its power, | Now comes down the rattling shower.' The two other differences are: in the third line of the first stanza, 'now' in the printed text is given as 'all' in the manuscript; and in the fifth line of the second stanza of the manuscript, the word 'winds' has been crossed out and replaced by 'airs' (as in the printed text).