The Cloud (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- First Published: 1820
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Nature, Life, philosophy of, Consciousness, Space and time, Universe, Weather, Laughter, Clouds, Rain
The Poem
In six stanzas of between twelve and eighteen lines each, the first-person narrator of “The Cloud,” who is the cloud itself, describes its various forms and functions throughout its life cycle. The first stanza captures the range of the cloud’s moods. Gentle, it brings rain to nourish the earth’s flowers and shade for the leaves of trees. The cloud can also be ferocious, however, bringing hail that whitens the ground, followed by thunderstorms.
Peaceful again in stanza 2, the cloud describes how it shrouds the snow on mountain peaks and sleeps during the...
[The entire page is 1386 words long]
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