Famous Clouds Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Clouds poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous clouds poems. These examples illustrate what a famous clouds poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The clouds expand and weep upon the earth. No

by Omar Khayyam
The clouds expand and weep upon the earth. No
longer can we live without the amaranthine cup. The
tender green glads weary eyes to-day, but oh! that emerald
verdure growing from our dust, whose sight will it
rejoice?...Read more of this...

On the Field of Kulicovo

by Aleksandr Blok
 The river stretched. It flows, idly grieves, 
And washes both banks. 
In steppe, above light clay of cliffs 
Rinks mourn in ranks. 

O Russia! Dear wife! With clearness and pain 
We see the lengthy way! 
It sent an arrow of ancient Tartar reign - 
In breast it lay. 

The way through steppes and an incessant plight, 
Through your, o...Read more of this...

The House Of Clouds

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud---
I build it bright to see,---
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,---
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and...Read more of this...

Clouds and Waves

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
"We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."
I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"
They answer, "Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky,...Read more of this...

Now in thick clouds Thy face Thou dost immerse,

by Omar Khayyam
Now in thick clouds Thy face Thou dost immerse,
And now display it in this universe;
Thou the spectator, Thou the spectacle,
Sole to Thyself Thy glories dost rehearse....Read more of this...

The Clouds their Backs together laid

by Emily Dickinson
 The Clouds their Backs together laid
The North begun to push
The Forests galloped till they fell
The Lightning played like mice

The Thunder crumbled like a stuff
How good to be in Tombs
Where Nature's Temper cannot reach
Nor missile ever comes...Read more of this...

These Are The Clouds

by William Butler Yeats
 These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye:
The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,
Till that be tumbled that was lifted high
And discord follow upon unison,
And all things at one common level lie.
And therefore, friend, if your great race were run
And these things came, So much the more thereby
Have you made...Read more of this...

Clouds Above The Sea

by Philip Levine
 My father and mother, two tiny figures,
side by side, facing the clouds that move
in from the Atlantic. August, '33.
The whole weight of the rain to come, the weight
of all that has fallen on their houses
gathers for a last onslaught, and yet they
hold, side by side, in the eye of memory.
What was she wearing, you ask, what did he
say to...Read more of this...

The Sky is low -- the Clouds are mean

by Emily Dickinson
 The Sky is low -- the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake of Snow
Across a Barn or through a Rut
Debates if it will go --

A Narrow Wind complains all Day
How some one treated him
Nature, like Us is sometimes caught
Without her Diadem....Read more of this...

Clouds Gathering

by Charles Simic
 It seemed the kind of life we wanted.
Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.
Sunlight in every room.
The two of us walking by the sea naked.

Some evenings, however, we found ourselves
Unsure of what comes next.
Like tragic actors in a theater on fire,
With birds circling over our heads,
The dark pines strangely still,
Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.

We were...Read more of this...

Clouds

by Rupert Brooke
 Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,
Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow
Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.
Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,
As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.
They say that...Read more of this...

The clouds are still spread out above the roses and

by Omar Khayyam
The clouds are still spread out above the roses and
seem to cover them as with a veil. The desire for wine
is not yet satiated in my heart. Then go not to rest, it is
not yet the hour. O my soul, drink of the wine; drink,
for the sun is still upon the horizon.
335...Read more of this...

Everything That Acts Is Actual

by Denise Levertov
 From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me

into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?

The flawed moon acts on...Read more of this...

The Progress of Poesy

by Thomas Gray
 A Pindaric Ode

Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it...Read more of this...

Clouds

by Philip Levine
 1 

Dawn. First light tearing 
at the rough tongues of the zinnias, 
at the leaves of the just born. 

Today it will rain. On the road 
black cars are abandoned, but the clouds 
ride above, their wisdom intact. 

They are predictions. They never matter. 
The jet fighters lift above the flat roofs, 
black arrowheads trailing their future. 

2 

When...Read more of this...

Some Clouds

by Steve Kowit
 Now that I've unplugged the phone,
no one can reach me--
At least for this one afternoon
they will have to get by without my advice
or opinion.
Now nobody else is going to call
& ask in a tentative voice
if I haven't yet heard that she's dead,
that woman I once loved--
nothing but ashes scattered over a city
that barely itself any longer exists.
Yes, thank you,...Read more of this...

Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds Painted Window at New College Oxford

by Thomas Warton
 Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...

Gloomily the Clouds

by Anne Bronte
 Gloomily the clouds are sailing
O'er the dimly moonlit sky;
Dolefully the wind is wailing;
Not another sound is nigh; 
Only I can hear it sweeping
Heathclad hill and woodland dale,
And at times the nights's sad weeping
Sounds above its dying wail.

Now the struggling moonbeams glimmer;
Now the shadows deeper fall,
Till the dim light, waxing dimmer,
Scarce reveals yon stately hall.

All beneath its roof are sleeping;
Such...Read more of this...

The Book of Urizen (excerpts)

by William Blake
 CHAPTER 1 

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen 
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
"It is Urizen." But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid. 

CHAPTER 2 

Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds...Read more of this...

The Basket

by Amy Lowell
 I
The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies 
white and unspotted,
in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness 
sweep into
the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The 
air
is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight.
See how the roof glitters, like ice!
Over there, a slice of yellow...Read more of this...

A Funeral Fantasie

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood--the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres--vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.

With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched...Read more of this...

The Inward Morning

by Henry David Thoreau
 Packed in my mind lie all the clothes 
Which outward nature wears, 
And in its fashion's hourly change 
It all things else repairs. 
In vain I look for change abroad, 
And can no difference find, 
Till some new ray of peace uncalled 
Illumes my inmost mind. 

What is it gilds the trees and clouds, 
And paints the heavens so...Read more of this...

A Memory

by George William Russell
 YOU remember, dear, together
 Two children, you and I,
Sat once in the autumn weather,
 Watching the autumn sky.


There was some one round us straying
 The whole of the long day through,
Who seemed to say, “I am playing
 At hide and seek with you.”


And one thing after another
 Was whispered out of the air,
How God was a big, kind brother
...Read more of this...

The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds

by Stephen Crane
 The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds;
The leaden thunders crashed.
A worshipper raised his arm.
"Hearken! Hearken! The voice of God!"

"Not so," said a man.
"The voice of God whispers in the heart
So softly
That the soul pauses,
Making no noise,
And strives for these melodies,
Distant, sighing, like faintest breath,
And all the being is still to hear."...Read more of this...

Sanctuary

by Elinor Wylie
 My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet's the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges....Read more of this...

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