O SKY! O lucid sky of May!
O'er which the fleecy clouds have stolen,
In bands snow-white, and glimmering-gray,
Or heart-steeped in a lustre golden.
O sky! that tak'st a thousand moods,
Enshadowed now, and now out-beaming,
Swept by low winds like interludes
Of music 'twixt soft spells of dreaming,
Type of the poet's soul thou art
In spring-time of his teeming fancies,
When heavenly glamours brim his heart,
And heavenly glory lights his glances;
As morning's dubious vapors form
In wavering lines and circlets tender,
Pure as an infant's brow, or warm
With tintings of a primrose splendor;
Thus o'er the poet's soul his thought
Pale first as mist-wreaths scarce created,
With fire-keen breaths of ardor fraught,
From radiance born, to beauty mated,
Takes shape like yonder cloud outspanned
Above the murmurous woodland spaces,
Whose brightening rifts, methinks, are grand
With mystic lights and marvellous faces;
Or, merges in some fancy vain,
Yet rare beyond the worldling's measure;
Some delicate cloudlet of the brain
That melts far up its quivering azure!
