| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | Cloud Fantasies | | By Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886) |
| | | WILD, rapid, dark, like dreams of threatening doom, | |
| Low cloud-racks scud before the level wind; | |
| Beneath them, the bare moorlands, blank and blind, | |
| Stretch, mournful, through pale lengths of glimmering gloom; | |
| Afar, grand mimic of the sea-waves’ boom, | 5 |
| Hollow, yet sweet as if a Titan pined | |
| O’er deathless woes, yon mighty wood, consigned | |
| To autumn’s blight, bemoans its perished bloom; | |
| The dim air creeps with a vague shuddering thrill | |
| Down from those monstrous mists the sea-gale brings, | 10 |
| Half-formless, inland, poisoning earth and sky; | |
| Most from yon black cloud, shaped like vampire wings | |
| Or a lost angel’s visage, deathly-still, | |
| Uplifted toward some dread eternity. | | | | |
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