Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE YELLOW CLOUD, by CHARLES LOUIS HENRY WAGNER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE YELLOW CLOUD, by                    
First Line: A cloud, a yellow cloud, and deep and dense
Last Line: No more I'll fear again. Fear is not real.
Subject(s): Fear; Sun


A cloud, a yellow cloud, and deep and dense
(Methought the farmer-gods burned saffron pitch
Or damped the stubble from their garnered fields
To smother flame, save for a breath to fan
Their slow consuming fire) it rose. The sun,
My laughing, joyous sun, that sang of Hope
And gave me life, a poet's life—yea, more—
Was lost to view, and, but for truant rays,
Tinged with a yellow cast, the day was done,
And with a rush the winds of Heaven shook
And swayed the giants of my little world,
I thought them strong (I mean the oaks and pines
My sires planted in the bygone years),
Some fell, their roots exposed a worthless clay,
But most stood firm, though beat by scourging blasts
And hissed by mocking Voices of the winds.

And I—I was afraid. I looked, and lo!
In the blackening deeps of the cloud I saw
(As though I had gazed on a silvered glass
That mirrored the deeds of a demon world)
A picture of War! Men mounted and afoot,
Guns, weltering steel, man's vulture-like planes,
The gray of the froth-churning fleets of the sea,
The eye of the seeing yet shadowless boat
Still lying beneath the crests of the waves;
All this did I see, and more. In the west
Leered a Mongol face with a jealous hate
Expressed thereon. And then a shadow hand
Wrote with a blood-dipped pen (a broken spear)
These dismal words—"For you to come, for you!"

I closed my eyes, the Coward-thought had gripped
And held me bound—and then, to view again
I opened them. Behold! That yellow cloud
Had almost disappeared. Its fleeting fringe
Formed on the blue of the heavenly bowl
As though it were writ by the Maker's hand,
The one word "Fear." I knelt, and understood;
The sun drove off the winds. My little world
Once more rejoiced; the fallen trees I left
That I might be reminded of these truths;
Fear is a cloud, a shadow, seeming real,
Portentous glooms give way to joyous suns,
The winds of doubt can but uproot the weak,
No more I'll fear again. Fear is not real.





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