Classic Poem

Through the blue and diaphanous sky,
I once saw a white cloud drifting by,
In rare flocculent purity;
Like some angel's immaculate plume,
All unconscious of tempest and gloom,
Or the wide night's obscurity.

As I watched the calm, delicate grace,
Of this beautiful pilgrim of space,
As I sat mute and pondering;
My soul envied its power to be free,
And the marvelous sites it would see
In strange, distant lands wandering.

Gently urged, murmured I, by the breeze,
It will cross green expanses of seas,
This frail substance etherial;
And will see below soft Spanish stars,
The grand bastions of white Alcazars,
And Alhambras imperial!

It will steal o'er the drear Apennines,
Through its mist of magnificent pines,
Where the tower of Ferrara gleams,
And will watch the grim glaciers lean,
Where the snow on some Alpine ravine
Like the dust of Carrara gleams.

Where Stromboli burns red to the night,
It will pass in the zigzag of flight,
Shunning hurricanes pluvius,
And will float ever higher and higher,
Colored crimson and gold by the fire
Of the fretful Vesuvius.

It will pass over Rome the Sublime,
And will see the mad Carnival-time,
When the crowded throngs merry go,
And beyond, upon summerful lands,
It will smile on the rose-reeking strands
Of fair Zante and Cerigo.

By the swift-winged and briny winds borne,
It will poise o'er the great Golden-Horn
Where the heavens all starry shine,
And will view in the scintillant light
Of the rising sun, splendid and bright,
The vast domes of Scutari shine.

Where the Parthenon's marble at night,
Like the ghost of dead Beauty lies white,
It will linger to gaze on it,
And from thence it may wander awhile
By the banks of the lotus-girt Nile
When the moon pours her rays on it.

Still propelled by the indolent gales,
It will roam over Indian vales,
And inhale the rare flowers of them;
Or, supremely exultant, will soar
Over Delhi! Benares! Lahore!
And the glittering towers of them!

It will fly past the blue Hoang-Ho,
That thro' cities of bamboo doth flow
When the full moon falls bright on it;
And its nebulous spirit would love
To be changed by the gods to a dove
And in rapture alight on it.

Thus I mused on this fair summer day,
As the cloud slowly drifted away,
To the lands I had dreamed about;
But alas! when I looked up I saw
With a pang of unspeakable awe,
Livid lightnings that gleamed about!

All the brilliant sky's azure intense,
Had grown turbulent, angry and dense,
While the rough winds blew plunderful,
And the white and the beautiful cloud,
Formed a part of the tenebrous shroud,
Of the grim tempest thunderful.

Like to this is the musing supreme
Of the poet who only can dream
Of serene Ideality;
Who awakes from fair visions of grace,
To see thrust in his innocent face,
All the world's cold reality!