At Minas Basin and Other Poems — The Cirrus Cloud

The touch of two vast worlds is on us now.

Our spirits hear the ebb and flow unseen Of swift commingling tides of far and near,-- The low sweet murmur of the early vow, Commerce of life's strange sea, on wing between, And folding plumes arrived the heavenly pier.

THE CIRRUS CLOUD.

Thou hast the secret of the fiery dew, Variety and number infinite Are vestured in thy wavy flakes of white,-- Of distance and of space thou hast the clue.

Aloof from vapory clouds that fume and spue, Lifting thyself victorious in fight Into the far repose of zonëd light, Thou strivest to attain nirvâna-blue.

Mottled, or plumed, or ribbed, or ripple-barred, Encamped upon the unfenced fields of space, Unsullied are thy tents cool-washed in air;

And when morn's bugle blows, or sky's new-starred, Thy cohorts wait day's coming, parting face, Like flocks of rosy angels drifting there.