6. For love, and beauty, and delight, No light, being themselves obscure. THE CLOUD. I. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers I bear light shade for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; 2. I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the Blast. In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion Lured by the love of the Genii that move Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Wherever he dream under mountain or stream And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, 3. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, When the morning star shines dead: As on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea bencath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, 4. That orbed maiden with white fire laden Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 5. I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below. 6. I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky: I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, TO A SKYLARK. I. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit Bird thou never wert That from heaven or near it In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 2. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest: The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight— Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there. 6. All the earth and air As, when night is bare, The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 7. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: 8. Like a poet hidden To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 9. Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower : 10. Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: II. Like a rose embowered By warm winds deflowered, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. 12. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Joyous and clear and fresh,-thy music doth surpass. 13. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 14. Chorus hymeneal Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 17. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 18. We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 19. Yet, if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear, If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 20. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Such harmonious madness The world should listen then as I am listening now. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden; My spirit is too deeply laden I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion; Innocent is the heart's devotion THE TWO SPIRITS. AN ALLEGORY. FIRST SPIRIT. O THOU who plumed with strong desire Bright are the regions of the air, SECOND SPIRIT. The deathless stars are bright above: And the moon will shine with gentle light FIRST SPIRIT. But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken |