The Cloud - Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 skyey 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.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,

As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,-The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

The Cloud : Percy Bysshe Shelley - Summary and Critical Analysis

The Cloud by Shelley is perhaps the most important one in Shelleys poetry in terms
of image and symbols. It symbolizes the force and harbinger of revolution. It is the agent
of change that inspires one to move from apathy to spiritual vitality. It is dynamic and
creative. In this poem, it is even personified, angelic, immortal, and mythical. The Cloud
is here treated as a kind of essential element which binds and sustains all other things. It
supplies the soil with rain so that regenerate. It gives shade to the sapling and ripeness
to the fruit. It functions as the gardener, nurse and mother to the natural beings. But it
also works like a thresher, and it has its aggressive nature too. By employing this form of
personification, Shelley is able to endow the nature with the powers and attributes of
immortal gods; the cloud is made a minor divinity.
The cloud is not only capable of changing
but also not capable of dying. It becomes
the gardener that brings rain to the
thirsty flowers, a nurse who shades the
child as the child is having a nap in the
midday sun, a bird that shakes its dew
over the buds, and a thresher who beats
the seeds off after harvesting the crops.
It sleeps, laughs, floats, pursues a
beloved, folds its wings like a bird, it
broods, marches through the rainbow
triumphantly. This is obviously the
common symbol of the Shelleyan
revolution.
The first stanza states the various activities and functions of the cloud. It brings
fresh showers from seas and rivers for thirsty flowers. It provides shade for the leaves
when they sleep during the daytime. It showers down upon buds that open up after
being fed in this manner. Sometimes, the cloud also brings the hail that covers the green
plains with a white coat, but soon enough it dissolves this hail with rain.
In the second stanza the poet describes some more of the clouds activities. It
disturbs the snow on mountaintops, and this makes the tall pine tree groan in surprise.
At night, the snow forms its pillow while it sleeps in the arms of the storm. Lightning
guides the cloud over water and land, because it is attracted by its love for the genii, the
negatively charged counterpart of the positive charge in the lightning above, or the
spirits that live below the purple sea. In search, of this love, lightning travels everywhere
taking the cloud with it. During his journey, the cloud enjoys itself in the smile of the
blue sky, while lightening dissolves itself in tears of rain. The details of first stanza and
second stanza evoke both gentle and harsh qualities of the cloud; it is not only the agent

The Cloud : Percy Bysshe Shelley - Summary and Critical Analysis

of nursing baby plants, it also threatens and even destroys the old pine trees ( in Shelley,
the old trees are rooted evil institutions and conventions of inhumanity).
The third stanza describes the clouds game with the sun. The cloud says the red
colored sun, with its large eyes and its burning feathers, jumps on to the clouds sailing
cradle when the morning star loses its shine. Its position is similar to an eagle sitting for
a moment on the top of a mountain, which is moved hither and thither by the
earthquake. When the sunset announces the end of the day, singing its song of rest and
love from the sea beneath, when the red covering falls upon the whole world from the
sky, the cloud rests like a dove, sitting in its nest with folded wings. This image evokes
the Biblical image of the Holy Spirit, the one universal creative force, evoking the cloud
significance as a universally creative force of the nature.
In the forth stanza, we find the cloud talking about the moon. It says that the moon
guides over the soft, silken floor of the cloud, the floor that has been prepared by the
midnight breezes that scatter the cloud here and there. At some places, where the moon
places its feet, the clouds thin roof is rent open, through which the stars peep and stare.
When, after staring, the stars turn round and run away, the cloud laughs at them. Then,
the cloud widens the hole in its tent-shaped roof and consequently moonlight floods all
objects on the earths surface. The moon is then reflected by the calm surface of lakes,
rivers and seas, till is seems that a part of the sky has fallen down. Here, the cloud is the
type of altocumulus. The images of the playful moon and stars evoke the idea of the
playfulness of the creative forces like the cloud and its allies.
In the fifth stanza, the cloud describes the manner in which it restricts the moon and
the sun. It restricts the suns throne with a bright circle, while it creates a circle of pearls
round the moons throne. When its banner is spread across the sky by the stormy wind,
it makes the bright volcanoes dim and the stars spin and swim. It hangs like a roof over
a torrential sea, and protects it from the heat of the sun. It is itself supported in its rooflike position by the mountains. The multi-colored rainbow forms a triumphal arch,
through which it marches, attended by the hurricane, fire and snow, pushed by the
stormy breeze. Here, the cloud changes from the form of cirrostratus to that of
stratocumulus.
In the final stanza, the cloud describes its origin; it says that it is the daughter of
earth and water, and an infant nursed by the sky. It passes through the holes in the
oceans and the shores. It changes, but it does not die. The cloud is one thing and also
many things; it changes its forms but it is the same essence of life, growth and change
in the nature. It is the agent of the cycle of life, for it changes seasons and sustains all
living beings by bringing the rain, giving shade, letting the sun shine when needed, and
bringing the dry autumn for plants to wither and give way to the next spring. It is not
only gentle like a child, it is also terrible like a ghost; it supports the system of life
ceaselessly and in numberless ways.