To a Thunder-Cloud + 

Oh, melancholy fragment of the night + 

Drawing thy lazy web against the sun, + 

Thou shouldst have waited till the day was done + 

With kindred glooms to build thy fane aright, + 

Sublime amid the ruins of the light! + 

But thus to shape our glories one by one + 

With fearful hands, ere we had well begun + 

To look for shadows⁠—even in the bright! + 

Yet may we charm a lesson from thy breast, + 

A secret wisdom from thy folds of thunder: + 

There is a wind that cometh from the west + 

Will rend thy tottering piles of gloom asunder, + 

And fling thee ruinous along the grass, + 

To sparkle on us as our footsteps pass! + 