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Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The House Of Clouds
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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 glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
     And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,
     Darkening and then brightening,—-
If a riven thunder-cloud,
     Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
     For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
     As I enter in.

Build a spacious hall thereby:
     Boldly, never fearing.
Use the blue place of the sky,
     Which the wind is clearing;
Branched with corridors sublime,
     Flecked with winding stairs—-
Such as children wish to climb,
     Following their own prayers.

In the mutest of the house,
     I will have my chamber:
Silence at the door shall use
     Evening`s light of amber,
Solemnising every mood,
     Softemng in degree,—-
Turning sadness into good,
     As I turn the key.

Be my chamber tapestried
     With the showers of summer,
Close, but soundless,—-glorified
     When the sunbeams come here;
Wandering harpers, harping on
     Waters stringed for such,—-
Drawing colours, for a tune,
     With a vibrant touch.

Bring a shadow green and still
     From the chestnut forest,
Bring a purple from the hill,
     When the heat is sorest;
Spread them out from wall to wall,
     Carpet-wove around,—-
Whereupon the foot shall fall
     In light instead of sound.

Bring the fantasque cloudlets home
     From the noontide zenith
Ranged, for sculptures, round the room,—-
     Named as Fancy weeneth:
Some be Junos, without eyes;
     Naiads, without sources
Some be birds of paradise,—-
     Some, Olympian horses.

Bring the dews the birds shake off,
     Waking in the hedges,—-
Those too, perfumed for a proof,
     From the lilies` edges:
From our England`s field and moor,
     Bring them calm and white in;
Whence to form a mirror pure,
     For Love`s self-delighting.

Bring a grey cloud from the east,
     Where the lark is singing;
Something of the song at least,
     Unlost in the bringing:
That shall be a morning chair,
     Poet-dream may sit in,
When it leans out on the air,
     Unrhymed and unwritten.

Bring the red cloud from the sun
     While he sinketh, catch it.
That shall be a couch,—-with one
     Sidelong star to watch it,—-
Fit for poet`s finest Thought,
     At the curfew-sounding,—- ;
Things unseen being nearer brought
     Than the seen, around him.

Poet`s thought,——not poet`s sigh!
     `Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
     As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud,
     Structure bright to see—-
Gone—-except that moonlit cloud,
     To which I looked with thee!

Let them! Wipe such visionings
     From the Fancy`s cartel—-
Love secures some fairer things
     Dowered with his immortal.
The sun may darken,—-heaven be bowed—-
     But still, unchanged shall be,—-
Here in my soul,—-that moonlit cloud,
     To which I looked with THEE!
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