Clouds.

YE clouds!—the very vagaries of grace
So wild and startling, fanciful and strange,
And changing momently, yet pure and true,
Distorted never, marring beauty’s mould:
But now,—ye lay a mass, a heaped up mass
Of interwoven beams, blue, rose, and green,
Not blended, but infused in one soft hue,
That yet has found no name. A sudden thrill,
A low, sweet thrill of motion stirred the air,
Perhaps a tremor of self-conscious joy,
That the contiguous breezes, moving slow,
Transmitted each to each:—instant as thought,
Yet imperceptibly, your form dissolved
Into a curtain of so fine a stain,
The young sky-spirits, that behind it clung,
Betrayed their glancing shapes: a moment more,
Solid and steep and piled like earthly mount,
With juts for climber’s foot, upholding firm,
And long smooth top, where he may gladly fling
His palpitating form, and proudly gaze
Upon a world below, and humbly up,
For Heaven is still beyond.
                    Stretches now
The gathering darkness on the silent West,
Smooth-edged yet tapering off in gloomy point,
With that long line of sultry red beneath,
As if its tightly vested bosom bore
The lightning close concealed.
Ye fair and soft and ever varying Clouds!
Where in your golden circuit, find ye out
The Armory of Heaven, rifling thence
Its gleaming swords?—Ye tearful Clouds!
Feminine ever, light or dark or grim,
I fear ye not, I wonder and admire,
And gladly would I charter this soft wind,
That now is here, and now will undulate
Your yielding lines, to bear me softly hence,
That I might stand upon that golden edge,
And bathe my brow in that delicious gloom,
And leaning, gaze into the sudden gap
From whence the Lightning passes!

Night has come, and the bright eyes of stars,
And the voice-gifted wind, and severed wide,
Ye flee, like startled spirits, through the sky
Over and over to the mighty North,
Returnless race, forgetting and forgot
Of that red, western cradle whence ye sprung!

As wild, as fitful, is the gathering mass
Of this eventful world,—enlarging heaps
Of care and joy and grief we christen Life.
Like these, they shine full oft in green and gold,
Or brightly ravishing foam:—utterly fond,
We seek repose, confiding on their breast,
And lo, they sink and sink, most noiseless sink,
And leave us in the arms of nothingness.
Like these, they pass, in ever-varying form,
As glancing angels, or assassin grim,
Sharp-gleaming daggers, ‘neath concealing garb!

Might we but dwell within the upper Heaven!
In the immensity of soul,—the realm
Of stars serene, and suns and cloudless moons,
Ranging delighted, while far down below
The Atmosphere of life concocts its shapes
Evil or beautiful, and smile on all,
As gorgeous pictures spread beneath the feet.

Oh Thou, supreme infinitude of Thought!
Thou, who art height and depth! whither is Life,
And what are we, but vanishing shadows all
O’er the eternal ocean of thy Being!
It is thy will, the sunbeam of thy will
That perviates and modifies the air
Of mortal life, in which the spirit dwells:
Thou congregatest these joys and hopes and griefs,
In thee they beam or gloom. Eternal Sun!

Let them not come between my soul and thee;
Let me rejoice in thy o’erflooding light,
Fill up my being’s urn, until a Star,
Once kindled, ne’er extinct, my soul may burn
In the pure light of an excelling love,
Giving out rays, as lavishly as given!