The Cloud

13I sift the snow on the mountains below,

14And their great pines groan aghast;

15And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

16While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

17Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,

18Lightning my pilot sits;

19In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,

20It struggles and howls at fits;

21Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,

22This pilot is guiding me,

23Lured by the love of the genii that move

24In the depths of the purple sea;

25Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills.

26Over the lakes and the plains,

27Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,

28The Spirit he loves remains;

29And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,

30Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

31The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

32And his burning plumes outspread,

33Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

34When the morning star shines dead;

35As on the jag of a mountain crag,

36Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

37An eagle alit one moment may sit

38In the light of its golden wings.

39And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

40Its ardours of rest and of love,

41And the crimson pall of eve may fall

42From the depth of Heaven above.

43With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,

44As still as a brooding dove.

45That orbed maiden with white fire laden,

46Whom mortals call the Moon,

47Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,

48By the midnight breezes strewn;

49And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

50Which only the angels hear,

51May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof.

52The stars peep behind her and peer;

53And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

54Like a swarm of golden bees.

55When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,

56Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

57Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,

58Are each paved with the moon and these.

59I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,

60And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;

61The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,

62When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

63From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

64Over a torrent sea,

65Sunbeam-proof, I hand like a roof, —

66The mountains its columns be.

67The triumphal arch through which I march

68With hurricane, fire, and snow,

69When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,

70Is the million-coloured bow;

71The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

72While the moist Earth was laughing below.

73I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

74And the nursling of the Sky;

75I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

76I change, but I cannot die.

77For after the rain when with never a stain

78The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

79And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

80Build up the blue dome of air,

81I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

82And out of the caverns of rain,

83Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

84I arise and unbuild it again.