O last cloud of the scattered storm,
Alone thou sailest along the azure clear;
Alone thou bringest the darkness of shadow;
Alone thou marrest the joy of the day.
Thou but recently hadst encircled the sky,
When sternly the lightning was winding about thee.
Thou gavest forth mysterious thunder,
Thou hast watered with rain the parched earth.
Enough; hie thyself. Thy time hath passed.
The earth is refreshed, and the storm hath fled,
And the breeze, fondling the leaves of the trees,
Forth chases thee from the quieted heavens.
14. Observe, here the poet has no ultimate end but that of giving
expression to the overflowing sense of beauty which comes over the soul
as he beholds the last remnant of a thunder-storm floating off into airy
nothingness. But it is a beauty which ever since the days of Noah and
his rainbow has filled the human soul with marvelling and fearing
adoration. Beautiful, then, in a most noble sense this poem indeed is.
Still, I cannot but consider the following few lines to the Birdlet,
belonging as the poem does to the same class with "The Cloud," as still
superior.