The Cloud-Shelly's Magical Ode.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1806, 2 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Cloud-Shelly's Magical Ode.

I bring fresh showera for the thirsting flowers, Prom the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreama. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet birds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten ths green plains under; Aud then again I dissolve it in rain; And laugh as I pass in thunder, I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night, 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers Lightning, my pilot, sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder; It struggles and howls at fitsOver earth an ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea ; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves, remain 3; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he i 3 dissolving in raina. The sanguine sunrise, with its meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shine 9 dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swing 3, An eagle, alit, one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings; And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall Prom the depths o£ heaven above, With ,vings folded I rest on mine airy ne3t, As still as a brooding dove. That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor By the midnight breezes strewn; And, wherever the beat of her 1 unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May hove broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The star 3 peep behind her and peer ; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm river, lakes, and seas, Like'strips of the 3ky fallen through mo on high, Are each paved with the moon and these. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my bauner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be, Tho triumphal arch, through which I march, With hunicane, fire and snow, • When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The spherc-firo above, its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below. I am the daughter of the earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the oc ean and shores; I change but I cannot die. For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air — I silently laugh, at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and upbuild it again.