POETRY OF CLOUDS AND SKIES.
“Number the clouds in wisdom.”—Job. xxxviii. 37.
“God rideth in his excellency on the sky.”—Deut. xxxiii. 26.
“The firmament showeth his handy-work.”—Ps. xix. 1.
A speaking magic in poetic skies
Affects the soul, and fascinates the eyes;
Look where we may, some cloud-born grace we find
To shade the mirror of responsive mind.
And why did God thus beauteously array
Calm noon, chaste eve, and re-commencing day,
But that our echoing minds should inly feel
How heaven and poetry to man appeal?
Lord of the woods, and waves, and living air!
All lead to Thee when purified by prayer;
Connecting thus with beauty, colour, grace,
The dying mercy which redeem'd our race.
Let but Thy merit through creation shine,
And what was common, now becomes divine;
The beautiful on earth, the bright above,
Are open sacraments which preach Thy love.
How rich the consecrated dome of heaven,
When to some priest at Nature's shrine is given
The power, in all ethereal forms to see
Symbols and signs of present Deity!
The skies have meanings; and emotion seems
Oft to array them with impassion'd gleams,—
Colours intense, as if a conscious hue
Blush'd o'er its birth, and brighten'd at our view.
Painters and poets from the skies have brought
Fancies and feelings, to inspire their thought:
Beauty is there; and sentiment can rise
To noble pathos in the naked skies.
Home of the seasons! and the haunt of storms,
Now fierce with gloom, now fair with opal forms,
Dark in thy strength, or smiling in thy play,
I love thy magic, and revere its sway.
But most I hail thee, golden, calm, and deep,
When isles of radiance on thy bosom sleep;
Or robe-like clouds in rich confusion lie,
As though veil'd angels floated up the sky
Garb'd in the vesture of thy woven sheen,
And left an outline where their veils had been:—
So exquisitely touch'd the tinted air,
Seraphic creatures might be mansion'd there.
And who can tell, since first the heavens have spann'd
Their arching glories over sea and land,
What vast impressions from yon varied skies
Have soothed man's spirit, while it charm'd his eyes?
When to the captive, through his dungeon-bar
Gleams of blue heaven come glancing from afar,
Through fields of childhood Fancy seems to roam
And wind the pathway freedom wound at home.
And think how Sickness, when the pulse renews
Its beat of vigour, hails yon skyey views,
While with new gush of health each glance of love
Seems to be answer'd, when it looks above.
There memory, too, and meditation find
Symbolic hues to mirror forth the mind;
Sky and the soul like sympathies can meet,
Till what our hearts express, the clouds repeat.
And when, pure Lord of loneliness and woe!
We dream Thy pilgrimage of pain below,
Faith may conceive, full oft Thine harass'd eye
Drank the deep quiet of congenial sky.
And as ascending to Thy throne of light
A cloud receiv'd Thee from the spell-bound sight
Of those sad watchers, who beheld Thee soar
Back to the bliss where Thou wert throned before,
So when our hearts the sweep of heaven survey
And solemn fancies o'er its surface play,
Let not religion this true thought disdain,—
A cloud shall waft Thee to our world again.
