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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Clouds on Whiteface

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

New England: White Mountains, N. H.

Clouds on Whiteface

By Lucy Larcom (1826–1893)

SO lovingly the clouds caress his head,—

The mountain-monarch; he, severe and hard,

With white face set like flint horizon-ward;

They weaving softest fleece of gold and red,

And gossamer of airiest silver thread,

To wrap his form, wind-beaten, thunder-scarred.

They linger tenderly, and fain would stay,

Since he, earth-rooted, may not float away.

He upward looks, but moves not; wears their hues;

Draws them unto himself; their beauty shares;

And sometimes his own semblance seems to lose,

His grandeur and their grace so interfuse;

And when his angels leave him unawares,

A sullen rock, his brow to heaven he bares.