Anonymous

THOU gorgeous cloud, in gold and purple furled,

In thy career I read a mystery;

For, like the gilded hopes of this strange world,

Thou art delusion; yet I gaze on thee,

As if thou wert what thou dost seem to be,

Rolling along the heavens,—a golden car.

’T were fine, amid the stars a wanderer free,

To lie within thy folds, and look afar

Over the teeming land and sparkling sea!

How pleasant from thy bosom to descry

You monarch mountain that doth tower so high,

A speck,—diminished to the distant eye,—

And cataracts, that pall the ear and sight,

Twinkling like tiny dew-drops in the light!