| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | V. To a Cloud | | Anonymous |
| | | THOU gorgeous cloud, in gold and purple furled, | |
| In thy career I read a mystery; | |
| For, like the gilded hopes of this strange world, | |
| Thou art delusion; yet I gaze on thee, | |
| As if thou wert what thou dost seem to be, | 5 |
| Rolling along the heavens,—a golden car. | |
| ’T were fine, amid the stars a wanderer free, | |
| To lie within thy folds, and look afar | |
| Over the teeming land and sparkling sea! | |
| How pleasant from thy bosom to descry | 10 |
| You monarch mountain that doth tower so high, | |
| A speck,—diminished to the distant eye,— | |
| And cataracts, that pall the ear and sight, | |
| Twinkling like tiny dew-drops in the light! | | | | |
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