The Cloud Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFF GGHHII JJKKLLMMNN OOPPQQRRSSSTB OOLLUUVVGGWW XXYYZZCCA2A2B2B2C2C2 JJCCCD2D2| One summer morn out of the sea waves wild | A |
| A speck like Cloud the season s fated child | A |
| Came softly floating up the boundless sky | B |
| And o er the sun parched hills all brown and dry | B |
| Onward she glided through the azure air | C |
| Borne by its motion without toil or care | C |
| When looking down in her ethereal joy | D |
| She marked earth s moilers at their hard employ | D |
| - | |
| And oh she said that by some act of grace | E |
| Twere mine to succour yon fierce toiling race | E |
| To give the hungry meat the thirsty drink | F |
| The thought of good is very sweet to think | F |
| - | |
| The day advanced and the cloud greater grew | G |
| And greater likewise her desire to do | G |
| Some charity to men had more and more | H |
| As the long sultry summer day on wore | H |
| Greatened and warmed within her fleecy breast | I |
| Like a dove fledging in its downy nest | I |
| - | |
| The heat waxed fiercer until all the land | J |
| Clared in the sun as twere a monstrous brand | J |
| And the shrunk rivers few and far between | K |
| Like molten metal lightened in the scene | K |
| Ill could Earth s sons endure their toilsome state | L |
| Though still they laboured for their need was great | L |
| And many a long beseeching look they sped | M |
| Towards that fair cloud with many a sigh that said | M |
| We famish for thy bounty For our sake | N |
| O break thou in a showery blessing break | N |
| - | |
| I feel and fain would help you said the cloud | O |
| And towards the earth her bounteous being bowed | O |
| But then remem bring a tradition she | P |
| Had in her youth learned from her native sea | P |
| That when a cloud adventures from the skies | Q |
| Too near the altar of the hills it dies | Q |
| Awhile she wavered and was blown about | R |
| Hither and thither by the winds of doubt | R |
| But in the midst of heaven at length all still | S |
| She stood then suddenly with a keen thrill | S |
| Of light she said within herself I will | S |
| Yea in the glad strength of devotion I Will help | T |
| you though in helping you I die | B |
| - | |
| Filled with this thought s divinity the cloud | O |
| Grew worldlike vast as earthward more she bowed | O |
| Oh never erewhile had she dreamed her state | L |
| So great might be beneficently great | L |
| O er the parched fields in her angelic love | U |
| She spread her wide wings like a brooding dove | U |
| Till as her purpose deepened drawing near | V |
| Divinely awful did her front appear | V |
| And men and beasts all trembled at the view | G |
| And the woods bowed though well all creatures knew | G |
| That near in her to every kind the same | W |
| A great predestined benefactress came | W |
| - | |
| And then wide flashed throughout her full grown form | X |
| The glory of her will the pain and storm | X |
| Of life s dire dread of death whose mortal threat | Y |
| From Christ himself drew agonizing sweat | Y |
| Flashed seething out of rents amid her heaps | Z |
| Of lowering gloom and thence with arrowy leaps | Z |
| Hissed jagging downward till a sheety glare | C |
| Illumined all the illimitable air | C |
| The thunder followed a tremendous sound | A2 |
| Loud doubling and reverberating round | A2 |
| Strong was her will but stronger yet the power | B2 |
| Of love that now dissolved her in a shower | B2 |
| Dropping in blessings to enrich the earth | C2 |
| With health and plenty at one blooming birth | C2 |
| - | |
| Far as the rain extended o er the land | J |
| A splendid bow the freshened landscape spanned | J |
| Like a celestial arc hung in the air | C |
| By angel artists to illumine there | C |
| The parting triumph of that spirit fair | C |
| The rainbow vanished but the blessing craved | D2 |
| Rested upon the land the cloud had saved | D2 |
Charles Harpur
(1)
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