Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair, Swimming in the pure quiet air! Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow; Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train As cool it comes along the grain.
Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee In thy calm way o'er land and sea: To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look On Earth as on an open book; On streams that tie her realms with silver bands, And the long ways that seam her lands; And hear her humming cities, and the sound Of the great ocean breaking round.
I would sail upon thy air-borne car To blooming regions distant far, To where the sun of Andalusia shines On his own olive-groves and vines, Or the soft lights of Italy's bright sky In smiles upon her ruins lie.- William Cullen Bryant