Clouds

a fancy in a late Romantic mood


Some may attempt to paint them, but they fail:
with nature’s art our art cannot compare—
those feathered armies of white angels’ wings,
those citadels, bright castles of the air.

Sometimes all fire and gold they dominate
in rippled hosts the dying of the sun,
suffusing all the earth with purple glow
of magic while the twilight minutes run.

Bright day—and there’s one ship poised on the blue,
or a whole fleet impending from afar,
moving upon us from another world,
a mightier and perhaps a better star.

One afternoon I saw a solid range
vaster than Himalaya; would that I
could climb upon those cumulated crests,
scaling the rounded mountains of the sky.

And when at dusk on the horizon far
they mimic swells of earth, a yearning fills
my heart to glide into that dim of day
and walk forever on those heaven hills.

DJL
27.7.2006