Explore "The Cloud" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, / From the seas and the streams; / I bear light shade for the leaves when laid / In their noonday dreams. / From my wings are shaken the dews that waken / The sweet buds every one, / When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, / As she dances about the sun. / I wield the flail of the lashing hail, / And whiten the green plains under, / And then again I dissolve it in rain, / And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below, / And their great pines groan aghast; / And all the night 'tis my pillow white, / While I sleep in the arms of the blast. / Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, / Lightning my pilot sits; / In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, / It struggles and howls at fits; / Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, / This pilot is guiding me, / Lured by the love of the genii that move / In the depths of the purple sea; / Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills. / Over the lakes and the plains, / Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, / The Spirit he loves remains; / And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, / Whilst he is dissolving in rains.