The Cloud by P. B. Shelley (Summary & Analysis)

 

The Cloud

by P. B. Shelley

(Summary & Analysis)

 

P. B. Shelley was the poet of the age of Wordsworth. It was the beginning of Romanticism.  According to a critic romanticism is a disease and classicism is health. The general characteristics of romanticism are:

•   mystery,

•   interest in the past,

•   love for nature,

•   interest in inhumanity,

•   love for the simplicities of life,

•   freedom of imagination,

•   subjectivity and spontaneity,

•   speculative and inquisitive tendency and

•   regeneration of poetic style.

Shelley was born in Sussex on August 4, 1792. He was in love with Harriet, eloped and married with her but their marriage proved a failure. His first poetical work is an outcry against the spiritual forces. He is known as the poet of vision. Like all great romantics he was a lover of nature. The external beauty of nature appealed to him.

 

The Cloud

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 skiey 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 ardours 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 aëry nest,

As still as a brooding dove.

 

That orbèd 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 calm the 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-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours 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.

 

There is no underlying meaning in this poem. The poet simply describes the beauty of nature through his subject, cloud. ‘The cloud’ is a poem of 84 lines, which can be divided into six parts. In the first part of this poem the poet describes the occupation of the cloud. In the second part he tells us about the lightening, her pilot. The poet further personifies Sunrise and Sunset. In the fourth part he describes the beauty of nature in the moonlit night. He further describes the power of the cloud and in the last part he talks about the parentage of the cloud and its eternity.

P. B. Shelley was a great artist of the romantic beauty of nature. As a romantic poet he has shown his all possibilities in the cloud. The cloud is a beautiful description of not only the cloud but all those things, which are directly or indirectly linked with cloud. In the first part of this poem, he says that the cloud brings fresh showers for the thirsty flowers and it bears light shade for leaves. It wakes up sweet buds, whitens the green plains by sifting the snow and hail. The poet says that the lightening, its pilot guides it over the earth and oceans. Lightening is in love with a genii. This genii remains with the cloud all the way over the rills and the crags, over the hills, lakes and the plains.

The poet personifies Sunrise and Sunset. The sunrise leaps on the back of the Cloud’s sailing rack and the Sunset breath the ardors of love and of rest from the lit sea beneath. The cloud says, that when night falls it rests on its airy nest in the arms of the blast. Like Sunrise, the orbed maiden, Moon also glides over the roof of its wind-built tent and breaks the woof of the tent. The stars and the moon peep from these rents.

He further describes the power of the cloud and its harmonies. The cloud binds the Sun’s throne with a burning zone and of Moon with a girdle of pearl. It dims the Volcanoes and the stars reel and swim before it. The poet says that this sunbeam proof cloud passes through the triumphal arch, rainbow with its harmonies, hurricane, fire and snow. The cloud says that because of its power the rainbow is formed.

In the last part of the poem the cloud says that it is the daughter of the earth and water and the nursling of the sky. It says that it can change but cannot die because after the season of rain when the sky is bare and looks like the cenotaph of the cloud, it unbuilds it again and comes out like a child from the womb or like a ghost from a tomb.

The Cloud is a beautiful piece of romantic art and perhaps the best of Shelley’s poetry. It can be said that the cloud is romantic throughout. From its each and every line romanticism flows. The poem contains almost all the poetic techniques like regular rhyming, rhythmic pattern, inline rhyming, similes, imageries, personification, run-on-line etc. the poet has given both concrete and imaginative imageries in such a quick succession that it seems difficult for us to keep pace with them. He has used adjectives in abundance