beat down upon

Two and a half feet of rain beat down upon the face of the San Gabriels, wiping out the rustic resorts wedged into the canyons, and chuting runoff waters down onto the plain along ancient dry rivulets and freshets and canyons that Angelenos had forgotten or never known about.

When it cried the woman stopped and uncovered her bosom to the child’s mouth, sitting flat upon the ground, and the sun beat down upon them both, the reluctant sun of late autumn that will not let go the warmth of summer until the cold of the coming winter forces it The woman and the child were as brown as the soil and they sat there like figures made of earth.

The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and her face was soon dripping with her sweat.

But for “Every Grain of Sand,” he framed his intensified spiritual drive with some of his most artfully poetic lyrics: “Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear / Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer / The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way / To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.”

A ferocious southern sun beat down upon the crowded riverfront of Volon Therys, but heat was the last and least of Griff’s concerns.