A WHITE face, drooping, on a bending neck: A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves Back from the undulating vessel's deck. From out the whitest cloud of summer steals The wildest lightning: from this face of thine Thy soul, a fire-of-heaven, warm and fine, In marvellous flashes its fair self reveals. As when one gazes from the summer sea On some far gossamer cloud, with straining eye, Fearing to see it vanish in the sky, So, floating, wandering Cloud-Soul, I watch thee. MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, 1866. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE PRISONER OF CHILLON: INTRODUCTORY SONNET by GEORGE GORDON BYRON TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME by ROBERT HERRICK ENVOI by JOHN GNEISENAU NEIHARDT SAINT BRIDE'S LULLABY by WILLIAM SHARP MNEMOSYNE by TRUMBULL STICKNEY TO IRELAND IN THE COMING TIMES by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |