Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CLOUD, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CLOUD, by                    
First Line: A cloud came over a land of leaves
Last Line: New life with the world's new birth
Subject(s): Clouds


A CLOUD came over a land of leaves
(Oh, hush, little leaves, lest it pass you by!) --
How they had waited and watched for the rain,
Mountain and valley, and vineyard and plain,
With never a sign from the sky!
Day after day had the pitiless sun
Looked down with a lidless eye.

But now! On a sudden a whisper went
Through the topmost twigs of the poplar spire;
Out of the east a light wind blew;
(All the leaves trembled, and murmured, and drew
Hope to the help of desire);
It stirred the faint pulse of the forest tree,
And breathed through the brake and the brier.

Slowly the cloud came, and then the wind died,
Dumb lay the land in its hot suspense;
The thrush on the elm-bough suddenly stopped,
The weather-warned swallow in mid-flying dropped,
The linnet ceased song in the fence; --
Mute the cloud moved, till it hung overhead,
Heavy, big-bosomed, and dense.

Ah, the cool rush through the dry-tongued trees,
The patter and plash on the thirsty earth,
The eager bubbling of runnel and rill,
The lisping of leaves that have drunk their fill,
The freshness that follows the dearth!
New life for the woodland, the vineyard, the vale,
New life with the world's new birth!





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