“Oh dear,” I’m saying,
As I softly weep,
“I am lonely and sad, I’ve not a soul to keep.”
So I sit a-crying,
That is all I can do,
And I softly weep above the people
And the trees and flowers too.
I am just a little cloud
Flung out alone in space,
I’ve no one to sit beside me,
Oh dear, oh dear,
I was so stupid and timid I never liked
To go by folk’s face.
They say I have a little lazy face,
But I can’t help it,
It is always just the same. I feel sweet
And kindly towards everything,
And with my soft, white fingers,
I anchor down the ripening corn,
And gather in the golden grain.
Every day I move above them,
And tenderly over them,
Sigh, sigh, sigh! But it is very lonely,
Nobody cares for me;
No one thinks of me or loves me at all
But only the birds who try to shelter
Under me in their flight.
Then I thought as I stretched a little lower down:
I will fall into a soft rosy sleep.
But when I awoke
At the long sun’s golden peep
I was exactly where I was before,
Up in the cold blue sky.
There was day and there was night,
I was pleased but I won’t deny
That I felt a little shy.
I turned my dark side to daylight
And so through the night I sweep.
Oh dear! the shapes that come in the
Night!
They are so sombre and so shadowy,
So dark, I can hardly bear their frightened
Shivery shapes in flight.
Overhead, below, before me,
I can only see these sad shapes
And nothing that’s glad and calm
Only their whisperings of harm.
Now I drift a little higher and higher up,
I will close my eyes and dream
Of the sun, the warm sunshine on the meads,
The warm, healthy sunshine that makes
Nature smile.
Nothing grows up here,
And yet there is something up here,
Some silent longing creature.
Oh dear, I could wish to weep.
There is something dreadful when it
grows too still;
So I sit and sigh, and sigh and think.
That the earth on which I rest
Must be cold and bare,
There are no soft maple-trees
Nor mossy patches there.
That chill white layer probably is ice,
It is so white and still.
The flowers must be very sad indeed
I wonder what’s come to them,
If they venture out
I do not know till day.
All night I drifted round
And high above the world
No one, not one little soul I see.
Oh me!
When will the light come again?
The snug frosty ground now,
A little warmer gleam
Wakes it from icy slumber.
The flowers slowly rise and tinkle and shake
As the ground thaws,
And the sad little creatures creep out
To enjoy the sunny gladsome air.
Oh dear, dear, dear. The beautiful sun!
I want to tell it something,
Something I have never told,
I want the sun to see me.
But it does not see me.
Oh dear,
And now it seems to tire of me,
Up, up, away to other lands I drift,
And the children down below,
They look at me and jump for joy,
They come and dance
And play in the angle of the field,
Soft, gently weeping flower-gatherers.
But they see me, and up, up in
The air
I drifted and drifted on.
I got too far away.
I thought I would return in a
Week and look at the garden again,
But I was too shy. The sun
Is too pretty, it is too warm and sleepy
To think of anything. I do not know
What to do; I think I’ll disappear away.