FAR up within the tranquil sky, Far up it shone; Floating, how gently, silently, Floating alone! A sunbeam touched its loftier side With deepening light: Then to its inmost soul did glide, Divinely bright. The cloud transfigured to a star, Thro' all its frame Throbbed in the fervent heavens afar, One pulse of flame: One pulse of flame, which inward turned, And slowly fed On its own heart, that burned, and burned, 'Till almost dead, The cloud still imaged as a star, Waned up the sky; Waned slowly, pallid, ghost-like, far, Wholly to die; But die so grandly in the sun -- The noonfire's breath -- Methinks the glorious death it won, Life! life! not death! Meanwhile a million insect things Crawl on below, And gaudy worms on fluttering wings Flit to and fro; Blind to that cloud, which grown a star, Divinely bright, Waned in the deepening heavens afar, Till -- lost in light! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WINTER SONG by KATHERINE MANSFIELD OVER THE HILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE by WILLIAM MCKENDREE CARLETON AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY ON A LADY WHO FANCIED HERSELF A BEAUTY by CHARLES SACKVILLE (1637-1706) A SONG OF THE WESTERN EDEN by HOPE S. BARBER NORTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHT (STRAITS OF CARQUINEZ) by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |