TO THE CLOUDS
ARMY of Clouds! ye winged Hosts in troops Ascending from behind the motionless brow Of that tall rock, as from a hidden world, Oh whither with such eagerness of speed? What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the gale Companions, fear ye to be left behind, Or racing o’er your blue ethereal field Contend ye with each other? of the sea Children, thus post ye over vale and height To sink upon your’s mother’s lap–and rest? 10 Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine eyes Beheld in your impetuous march the likeness Of a wide army pressing on to meet Or overtake some unknown enemy?– But your smooth motions suit a peaceful aim; And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds Aerial, upon due migration bound To milder climes; or rather do ye urge In caravan your hasty pilgrimage 20 To pause at last on more aspiring heights Than these, and utter your devotion there With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubilant, And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun, Be present at his setting; or the pomp Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand Poising your splendours high above the heads Of worshippers kneeling to their up-risen God? Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed? Speak, silent creatures.–They are gone, are fled, 30 Buried together in yon gloomy mass That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright And vacant doth the region which they thronged Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting Down to the unapproachable abyss, Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose To vanish–fleet as days and months and years, Fleet as the generations of mankind, Power, glory, empire, as the world itself, The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be. 40 But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees, And see! a bright precursor to a train Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock That sullenly refuses to partake Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life Invisible, the long procession moves Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale Which they are entering, welcome to mine eye That sees them, to my soul that owns in them, And in the bosom of the firmament 50 O’er which they move, wherein they are contained, A type of her capacious self and all Her restless progeny. A humble walk Here is my body doomed to tread, this path, A little hoary line and faintly traced, Work, shall we call it, of the shepherd’s foot Or of his flock?–joint vestige of them both. I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts Admit no bondage and my words have wings. Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, 60 To accompany the verse? The mountain blast Shall be our ‘hand’ of music; he shall sweep The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake, And search the fibres of the caves, and they Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds And the wind loves them; and the gentle gales– Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn With annual verdure, and revive the woods, And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers– Love them; and every idle breeze of air 70 Bends to the favourite burthen. Moon and stars Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds Watch also, shifting peaceably their place Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie, As if some Protean art the change had wrought, In listless quiet o’er the ethereal deep Scattered, a Cyclades of various shapes And all degrees of beauty. O ye Lightnings! Ye are their perilous offspring; and the Sun– Source inexhaustible of life and joy, 80 And type of man’s far-darting reason, therefore In old time worshipped as the god of verse, A blazing intellectual deity– Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood Visions with all but beatific light Enriched–too transient were they not renewed From age to age, and did not, while we gaze In silent rapture, credulous desire Nourish the hope that memory lacks not power 90 To keep the treasure unimpaired. Vain thought! Yet why repine, created as we are For joy and rest, albeit to find them only Lodged in the bosom of eternal things? 1842.