Elson Grammar School Literature Part 14

"shrill delight"

"flood of rapture"

"float and run"

"rains out"

"triumphant chaunt"

"scattering unbeholden"

THE CLOUD

PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams; From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the las.h.i.+ng hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pa.s.s in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast, Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, Lightning, my pilot, sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,-- It struggles and howls by fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves remains; And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning-star s.h.i.+nes dead, As on the jag of a mountain-crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle, alit, one moment may sit, In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed Maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the Moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her, and peer!

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent of sea, Sun-beam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pa.s.s through the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es; I change, but I can not die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a sprite from the gloom, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and unbuild it again.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Notes and Questions.

In this poem Sh.e.l.ley personifies the Cloud. Why?

What does the second stanza mean to you?

The third stanza relates to the sun; what comparisons are made?

What comparisons are found in the fourth stanza?

Read the last stanza and tell what lesson the poem teaches. What line tells you?

What pictures do you get from the fifth stanza?

Which stanza is most musical and pleasing?

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"sanguine sunrise"

"pavilion of heaven"

"reel and swim"

"meteor eyes"

"caverns of rain"

"million-colored bow"

"burning plumes"

"fleece-like floor"

"sphere-fire"

"orbed maiden"

"wind-built tent"

"cenotaph"

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN (From "Childe Harold," Canto IV.)

LORD BYRON

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely sh.o.r.e, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan-- Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths--thy fields Are not a spoil for him--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, s.h.i.+vering in thy playful spray, And howling to his G.o.ds, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain t.i.tle take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war: These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy sh.o.r.es are empires changed in all save thee-- a.s.syria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their sh.o.r.es obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts; not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Gla.s.ses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze or gale or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical and Historical: George Gordon Byron was born in London the year before the outbreak of the French Revolution. At the age of ten, upon the death of his grand-uncle he became Lord Byron. He traveled extensively through Europe, spending much time in Italy. At Pisa he formed a warm friends.h.i.+p for the poet Sh.e.l.ley. So deeply was he moved by his impulses toward liberty and freedom that in the summer of 1823 he left Genoa with a supply of arms, medicines, and money to aid the Greeks in their struggle for independence. In the following year he became commander-in-chief at Missolonghi, but he died of a fever before he had an opportunity to actually engage in battle. Hearing the news, the boy Tennyson, dreaming at Somersby on poetic greatness, crept away to weep and carve upon sandstone the words, "Byron is dead."