O SKY! O lucid sky of May! O'er which the fleecy clouds have stolen, In bands snow-white, and glimmering-gray, Or heart-steeped in a lustre golden. O sky! that tak'st a thousand moods, Enshadowed now, and now out-beaming, Swept by low winds like interludes Of music 'twixt soft spells of dreaming, Type of the poet's soul thou art In spring-time of his teeming fancies, When heavenly glamours brim his heart, And heavenly glory lights his glances; As morning's dubious vapors form In wavering lines and circlets tender, Pure as an infant's brow, or warm With tintings of a primrose splendor; Thus o'er the poet's soul his thought Pale first as mist-wreaths scarce created, With fire-keen breaths of ardor fraught, From radiance born, to beauty mated, Takes shape like yonder cloud outspanned Above the murmurous woodland spaces, Whose brightening rifts, methinks, are grand With mystic lights and marvellous faces; Or, merges in some fancy vain, Yet rare beyond the worldling's measure; Some delicate cloudlet of the brain That melts far up its quivering azure! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) THE WIDOW'S MITE by FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON THE WIND by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON I HEARD YOUR SOLEMN-SWEET PIPES by WALT WHITMAN FROM A YOUNG WOMAN TO AN OLD OFFICER WHO COURTED HER by ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST MAN AND WOMAN GO THROUGH THE CANCER WARD by GOTTFRIED BENN TO HELEN KELLER by CRAVEN LANGSTROTH BETTS |