FAR up within the tranquil sky, Far up it shone; Floating, how gently, silently, Floating alone! A sunbeam touched its loftier side With deepening light: Then to its inmost soul did glide, Divinely bright. The cloud transfigured to a star, Thro' all its frame Throbbed in the fervent heavens afar, One pulse of flame: One pulse of flame, which inward turned, And slowly fed On its own heart, that burned, and burned, 'Till almost dead, The cloud still imaged as a star, Waned up the sky; Waned slowly, pallid, ghost-like, far, Wholly to die; But die so grandly in the sun -- The noonfire's breath -- Methinks the glorious death it won, Life! life! not death! Meanwhile a million insect things Crawl on below, And gaudy worms on fluttering wings Flit to and fro; Blind to that cloud, which grown a star, Divinely bright, Waned in the deepening heavens afar, Till -- lost in light! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FLORIDA GHOST by SIDNEY LANIER THE SCHOOL GIRL by WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE LEGENDARY LIGHTS by ALTER ABELSON NEVERNESS, OR THE ONE SHIP BEACHED ON ONE FAR DISTANT SHORE by MARGARET AVISON |