Poems (Barrett)/The House of Clouds

by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

The House of Clouds.

I would build a cloudy House
 For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose,
 And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud—
 I build it bright to see,—
Build it on the moonlit cloud,
 To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
 Faced with amber column,—
Crowned with crimson cupola
 From a sunset solemn!
May-mists, for the casements, fetch,
 Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
 And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,
 Darkening and eke brightening,—
Of a riven thunder-cloud,
 Veined by the lightning!
Use one with an iris-stain,
 For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
 As we enter in!

Enter a broad hall thereby,
 Walled with cloudy whiteness:
Tis a blue place of the sky,
 Wind-worked into brightness;
Whence such corridors sublime
 Stretch, with winding stairs—
Praying children wish to climb
 After their own prayers.

In the mutest of the house,
 I will have my chamber:
Round its door I keep for use
 Northern lights of amber.
Silence gave that rose and bee
 For the lock, in meteness;
And the turning of the key
 Goes in humming sweetness.

Be my chamber tapestried
 With the showers of summer,
Close but soundless,—glorified
 When the sunbeams come here—
Wandering harpers, harping on
 Chorded drops, as such,—
Drawing colours, for a tune,
 With a vibrant touch.

Bring a shadow green and still
 From the chestnut forest,—
Bring a purple from the hill,
 When the heat is sorest,—
Spread them out from wall to wall,
 Carpet-wove around,—
Whereupon the foot shall fall
 In light instead of sound.

Bring the fantasque cloudlets home,
 From the noontide zenith;
Banged, for sculptures, round the room,—
 Named as Fancy weeneth:
Some be Junos, without eyes—
 Naiads, without sources—
Some be birds of paradise,—
 Some, Olympian horses.

Bring the dews the birds shake off,
 Waking in the hedges,—
Those too, perfumed for a proof,
 From the lilies' edges:
From our England's field and moor,
 Bring them calm and white in,—
Whence to form a mirror pure,
 For Love's self-delighting!

Bring a grey cloud from the east,
 Where the lark is singing,—
Something of the song at least,
 Unlost in the bringing:
That shall be a morning chair,
 Poet-dream may sit in,
When it leans out on the air,
 Unrhymed and unwritten.

Bring the red cloud from the sun!
 While he sinketh, catch it—
That shall be a couch,—with one
 Sidelong star to watch it,—
Fit for poet's finest Thought,
 At the curfew-sounding,—
Things unseen being nearer brought
 Than the seen, around him.

Poet's thought,—not poet's sigh!
 'Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
 As in April weather!
Corridor and column proud,
 Chamber bright to see—
Gone!—except that moonlit cloud,
 To which I looked with thee!

Let them! Wipe such visionings
 From the Fancy's cartel—
Love secures some fairer things
 Dowered with his immortal!
Suns may darken,—heaven be bowed—
 Still, unchanged shall be,—
Soul-deep,—here—that moonlit cloud,
 To which I looked with thee!