The Clouds.
How beautiful the clouds,
The morning’s purple clouds;
How sweet they calm reposing lie
In yonder deep blue azure sky,
Streaked with crimson pale and red,
Fair as violets in their bed;
Gliding, floating, moving ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
How beautiful the clouds,
The noontide’s burning clouds;
Mountains of pure white driven snow,
In upper regions on they go;
Pillars of ever living light,
Piles of crystal gems as bright,
Gliding, moving, hurrying ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
How beautiful the clouds,
The dark and rolling clouds;
With tempest, storm, and fury crowned,
Where lightnings fiercely play around;
Terrific, grand, sublime, they rise
When pealing thunders rend the skies;
Whirling, heaving, rolling ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
How beautiful the clouds,
The golden sunset clouds;
Tinged with yellow, mellow light,
Warm, rich hues that gladden sight;
As sinks the wave in ocean’s breast,
So fades the many-colored west;
Fading, passing, gliding ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
How beautiful the clouds,
The evening, moonlit clouds;
On tireless wings of snowy hue
They move through heaven’s ethereal blue;
Like fairy forms of crystal light,
Arrayed in robes of silver white;
Gliding, floating, moving ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
And in our weary march,
The whirling, passing clouds
Are emblems of life’s hurried way,
Swift passing down its fleeting day;
In smiles and tears the restless mind
Is ever seeking—ne’er to find—
A resting place—but hurrying ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
Youth’s hopes, oh! what are they,
But clouds of changing hue;
Sometimes they’re tinged with golden light,
Beaming with softening beauty bright;
Like clouds they fade, they pass, they die,
And leave no trace upon the sky;
Fleeting, fading, passing ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.
I’d be, when life shall wane,
Like white-winged clouds of even;
Through fields of endless day I’d roam,
And find me there a starry home;
Beyond this world, far, far, away,
To Heaven’s own light I’d wing my way;
Through realms of bliss there roaming ever
Onward, onward, stopping never.