Classic Poem

Know ye the Red Cloud — Red Cloud of Afric —
Endless, unfathom'd, unceasing, borne on the warm wind;
Whelming the corn and fruit-land, farm and rick,
With the green veld before it, and the brown veld behind.
Green are the mealies, green the fields of corn,
Pink hangs the peach-blossom, and white the bloom of the plum,
And the garden whispers with things new-born,
When swift through the Spring air the scouts of the Red Cloud come.

Bright is the day, and rich the wind with flowers —
Roses and grenadillas, and woodbine on the wall,
And strange wild scent of the mimosa bowers,
When, shimm'ring in the sunshine, the flakes of the Red Cloud fall.

Millions untold the flakes sink on the green;
Whirring and ever whirring the great Red Cloud goes by
Shaking the heavens; fades the sun unseen
And all red fades the smother'd earth, and red the moving sky.

Daylong the lisp and whisper of the Cloud;
The whirr, and click, and rustle where the Red Locusts mow;
Shadow'd the earth, and shimmer'd in a shroud
Which lifts at length, and all too slowly, as the wing'd flakes go.

Behold, the dead! The blind eye of the land;
The bare earth in the sunshine; the grey stones on the hill;
No leaf on the tree, no bloom on the sand —
All brown is the greenness where the Red Cloud had its will.