Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

William Knox (1789-1825): Mortality.

Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 19.

Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud.

We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colours a suffusion from that light.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Dejection. An Ode. Stanza 5.

Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 221.

My little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 5.

So fades a summer cloud away;

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;

So gently shuts the eye of day;

So dies a wave along the shore.

Mrs Barbauld (1743-1825): The Death of the Virtuous.

It's wiser being good than bad;

It's safer being meek than fierce;

It's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;

That after Last returns the First,

Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best can't end worst,

Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Apparent Failure. vii.

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,

A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.

I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green,

To behold the wandering moon

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;

And oft, as if her head she bow'd,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

John Milton (1608-1674): Il Penseroso. Line 65.

Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced

That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,—

That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour

Serves but to brighten all our future days.

John Brown (1715-1766): Barbarossa. Act v. Sc. 3.

Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 221.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.