UNDER the cloud we pass, The cloud that dims our skies, The hot tears blur our eyes, We enter the cloud, alas! We mourn for our darling gone; For the days that come no more, With her laugh at the dear home door; We are desolate, being alone. We sigh for the might-have-beens, For the words we did not say— Was it only yesterday?— And memory sits and spins A web that is like a shroud, So thick and dark does it fold, Woe for the tale that is told! Like children we cry aloud. For when she was here, and yet Our own, for love's sweet grace, When the lighting up of her face Could banish our dull regret And give us surcease from pain, We took as a common thing (Ah! there is the sharpened sting) The touch, the look, the strain, The music and cheer she gave— And now she is gone away, Lost into heaven's bright day; And we—plant flowers on her grave. Aye, friends, we are under the cloud, So white, and chill, and thick, And the heart grows faint and sick, So fast do our wan thoughts crowd. But the cloud has an upper side, And somewhere out of the blue Our darling is looking through, And our sorrow is glorified. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THEN AND NOW by CECIL DAY LEWIS THE POPPY-LAND EXPRESS by EDGAR WADE ABBOT TO CORINTH by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR SATIRE: 3. TO SIR FRANCIS BRIAN by THOMAS WYATT HYMN OF FREEDDOM by MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY THE NEGLECTED HEART by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE FISHERMAN'S CHANT by FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND |