Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

IV. A Cloud

Mrs. Elizabeth Jesup Eames (1813–1856)

YON delicate cloud of faintest violet,

Floating in peerless beauty ’long the sky,

Heeds not the eternal stars around it set,

But silent as a dream goes gliding by.

O wand’ring cloud! fair child of dream and vision!

Radiant illusion, shining vapor! thou

Art like our ideal pictures of Elysium,—

Too bright and brief, as from thy beauteous brow

The changeful glories pass! As thou to heaven,

Was Hope, the angel, to my future given.

Her wing is folded now! not long she wore

The dew of morning on her pearly plume,

Cloud-like she passed away;—O, nevermore

Will Hope return to gild life’s grief and gloom!