THE CLOUDS. PAINTED clouds! sweet beauties of the sky! How have I viewed your motion and your rest, When, like fleet hunters, ye have left mine eye, In your thin gauze of woolly-fleecing drest; Or in your threatened thunder's grave black vest, Like black deep waters slowly moving by ; Awfully striking the spectator's breast With your Creator's dread sublimity, As admiration mutely views your storms. And I do love to see you idly lie, Painted by heaven as various as your forms, Pausing upon an eastern mountain high. CLARE THE CLOUDS. E glorious pageants! hung in air What in creation can compare, For loveliness, with you! This earth is beautiful, indeed, And in itself appeals To eyes that have been taught to read The beauties it reveals. Its giant mountains, which ascend To your exalted sphere, And seem at times with you to blend Its lovely valleys, forests vast; The sight, the sense must please. When through the eastern gates of heaven All glorious as that orb appears, His radiance still would lose When these with his refulgent rays Who on your splendid pomp can gaze, 'Tis then, if to the raptured eye Not merely mountains, cliffs, and caves, Not only what to man is known But objects which on earth can own As once the seer in Patmos saw So, in a faint and low degree, BARTON. THE LITTLE CLOUD. HE strange eventful scene is o'er, The prophet is alone once more, And now to Carmel's top repairs, To ask for rain with fervent prayers. And, while he prays on bended knee, Six times the servant seeks in vain Yet may Elijah not despair,— He knows the Lord will answer prayer. When, lo! the messenger descries The rain in torrents then descends, And will not this same God of love, O yes! the promises remain, For when his people humbly bend, And when our blessed Lord imparts Yet still that cloud may surely spread, ANON. THE CLOUD. WIFT sails the cloud across the skies, But swifter far its shadow flies Athwart the vale below. More swiftly still the life of man Flits on through glare or gloom; And every hour contracts the space Betwixt us and the tomb. The cloud shall soon dissolve in rain, Shall deck his faithful brow, Or quenchless flames his peace destroy, Though here his hours appear so brief, The seeds whence fruits of bliss or grief What though the saint may often hide The stream which rends the mountain's side Who lives to Christ with Christ shall reign, And none so abject but may gain A title to his throne. DR. HUIE. THE CLOUD. BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 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 birds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, I sift the snow on the mountains below, |