Poetry Archives

Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
  Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
  Thy shadow o’er the vale moves slow;
Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train
  As cool it comes along the grain.
Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee
  In thy calm way o’er land and sea:
To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look
  On Earth as on an open book;
On streams that tie her realms with silver bands,
  And the long ways that seem her lands;
And hear her humming cities, and the sound
  Of the great ocean breaking round.
Ay—I would sail upon thy air-borne car
  To blooming regions distant far,
To where the sun of Andalusia shines
  On his own olive-groves and vines,
Or the soft lights of Italy’s bright sky
  In smiles upon her ruins lie.
But I would woo the winds to let us rest
  O’er Greece long fettered and oppressed,
Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes
  From the old battle-fields and tombs,
And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foe
  Have dealt the swift and desperate blow,
And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke
  Has touched its chains, and they are broke.
Ay, we would linger till the sunset there
  Should come, to purple all the air,
And thou reflect upon the sacred ground
  The ruddy radiance streaming round.

Bright meteor! for the summer noontide made!
  Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade.
The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold,
  Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold:
The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou mayst frown
  In the dark heaven when storms come down;
And weep in rain, till man’s inquiring eye
  Miss thee, for ever, from the sky.