O little Cloud the virgin said, I charge thee to tell
me
Why thou complainest now when in one hour thou fade
away:
Then we shall seek thee but not find: ah Thel
is like to thee.
I pass away, yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.
The Cloud then shewd his golden head
& his bright form emerg’d.
Hovering and glittering on the air before the face
of Thel.
O virgin know’st thou not our steeds drink of
the golden springs
Where Luvah doth renew his horses: lookst thou
on my youth.
And fearest thou because I vanish and am seen no more.
Nothing remains; O maid I tell thee, when I pass away.
It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures
holy:
Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy
flowers:
And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining
tent
The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen
sun.
Till we arise link’d in a golden band and never
part:
But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.
Dost thou O little cloud? I fear that I am not
like thee:
For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the
sweetest flowers:
But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the
warbling birds,
But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek
their food:
But Thel delights in these no more because I fade
away
And all shall say, without a use this shining women
liv’d,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.
The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne
and answerd thus.
Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the
skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing
that lives.
Lives not alone nor or itself: fear not and I
will call,
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear
its voice.
Come forth worm and the silent valley, to thy pensive
queen.
The helpless worm arose and sat upon
the Lillys leaf,
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner
in the vale.
