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44
CLOUDS.
LINES SENT TO A FRIEND, AFTER WATCHING WITH HER ONE SUMMER'S EVENING THE PASSAGE OF CLOUDS AT DIFFERENT ALTITUDES SUCH AS ARE HERE DESCRIBED.
Fair is Earth, a goodly substance—fair with things of every hue;
But yon vapour-world is fairer, haunting the cerulean blue.
First the rain-clouds float above me, slow, like caravels of freight;
Higher are the central sailers; then the cirri, higher yet.
These are eastward slowly wending; o'er her grave their shadows pass,
While, in rapid retrocession, westward flies the central mass.
But yon vapour-world is fairer, haunting the cerulean blue.
First the rain-clouds float above me, slow, like caravels of freight;
Higher are the central sailers; then the cirri, higher yet.
These are eastward slowly wending; o'er her grave their shadows pass,
While, in rapid retrocession, westward flies the central mass.
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But the highest and the brightest, linger in their stately march:
These are they that bear the Angels, near the zenith of the arch;
And among them, poised or wafted, sit the Spirits of the Blest,
Looking down on us, the mourners, of their presence dispossest.
Oh for wings, that I might seek Her! Something whispers She is there,—
Yonder, up among the brightest of those floating isles of air.
These are they that bear the Angels, near the zenith of the arch;
And among them, poised or wafted, sit the Spirits of the Blest,
Looking down on us, the mourners, of their presence dispossest.
Oh for wings, that I might seek Her! Something whispers She is there,—
Yonder, up among the brightest of those floating isles of air.
Grasmere Church-yard, 1848.
The passage of clouds at different altitudes in different and even opposite directions, swayed by different currents of air, is quite a common, if not commonly observed, characteristic of them; but I ought not to say it is not commonly observed, for every seaman, and every shepherd, and every other habitual sky-gazer, must be familiar with it. The three several fleets of clouds yesterday sailed just as I have described them. The chapter on clouds in Mr. Ruskin's “Modern Painters” probably suggested something of the above.
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