Clouds

If these clouds ever should depart
Would the sun rekindle the frailty in my heart?
At night, I say, it is true
That little stars still show
But I cannot see them through
Mists that gather here below.

What little rain that falls
Casts no ripples in the streams;
Diseasing with its scent the city walls
While beyond the lightning screams.

The seeds find no nectar—
The fields lie chill and bare,
And the shadows cast the specter
Of what now grows—despair!

I sleep—drizzle—I sleep waking
Yearning for the blue—
Ah! These clouds! No dawn is breaking
The dead are dying now anew:
A new last breath, drowned, remaking
The Hell they tumbled once into.

Sing. Sing while I hold thee,
For the sun shines gently
In thine eye’s sweet, blue sea
And all the clouds that plague the sky
Cannot touch me while I lie
Beneath the melody of thy day
That the sublime angels say
Tears the shades away.