Ely Cathedral-Dark Clouds. Print

Clouds by John Brainard Ye clouds, who are the ornament of heaven, Who give to it its gayest shadowings, And its most awful glories; ye who roll In the dark tempest, or at dewy evening Hang low in tenderest beauty; ye who, ever Changing your Protean aspects, now are gather'd, Like fleecy piles, when the mid sun is brightest, Even in the height of heaven, and there repose, Solemnly calm, without a visible motion, Hour after hour, looking upon the earth With a serenest smile: or ye who rather, Heap'd in those sulphury masses, heavily Jutting above their bases, like the smoke Poured from a furnace or a roused volcano, Stand on the dun horizon, threatening Lightning and storm; who, lifted from the hills. March onward to the zenith, ever darkening, And heaving into more gigantic towers And mountainous piles of blackness; who then roar With the collected winds within your womb, Or the far uttered thunders; who ascend Swifter and swifter, till wide overhead Your vanguards curl and toss upon the tempest Like the stirred ocean on a reef of rocks Just topping o'er its waves, while deep below The pregnant mass of vapour and of flame Rolls with an awful pomp, and grimly lowers, Seeming to the struck eye of fear the car Of an offended spirit, whose swart features Glare through the sooty darkness, fired with vengeance, And ready with uplifted hand to smite And scourge a guilty nation; ye who lie, After the storm is over, far away, Crowning the drippling forests with the arch Of beauty, such as lives alone in heaven, Bright daughter of the sun, bending around From mountain unto mountain like the wreath Of victory, or like a banner telling Of joy and gladness; ye who round the moon Assemble, when she sits in the mid sky In perfect brightness, and encircle her With a fair wreath of all aërial dyes; Ye who, thus hovering round her, shine like mountains Whose tops are never darken'd, but remain, Centuries and countless ages, reared for temples Of purity and light; or ye who crowd To hail the newborn day, and hang for him, Above his ocean couch, a canopy Of all inimitable hues and colours, Such as are only pencill'd by the hands Of the unseen ministers of earth and air, Seen only in the tinting of the clouds, And the soft shadowing of plumes and flowers Or ye who, following in his funeral train, Light up your torches at his sepulchre, And open on us through the clefted hills Far glances into glittering worlds beyond The twilight of the grave, where all is light, Golden and glorious light, too full and high For mortal eye to gaze on, stretching out Brighter and ever brighter, till it spread, Like one wide radiant ocean without bounds, One infinite sea of glory: Thus, ye clouds, And in innumerable other shapes Of greatness or of beauty, ye attend us, To give to the wide arch above us Life And all its changes. Thus it is to us A volume full of wisdom, but without ye One awful uniformity had ever, With too severe a majesty, oppress'd us.