An Evening Cloud

Yon cloud, 't is bright and beautiful ­ it floats
Alone in God's horizon ­- on its edge
The stars seem hung like pearls -­ it looks as pure
As 't were an angel's shroud -­ the white cymar
Of Purity just peeping through its folds,
To give a pitying look on this sad world.
Go visit it, and find that all is false ;
Its glories are but fog ­- and its white form
Is plighted to some thunder-gust. ­-
The rain, the wind, the lightning have their source
In such bright meetings. Gaze not on the clouds,
However beautiful ­- Gaze at the sky ­-
The clear, blue, tranquil, fixed, and glorious sky.

John Brainard

On A Rainbow At Night

The bow that spans the storm is beautiful ;
Yet­ how we view it! from our very cradle
E'en to the extreme of our most ripened wisdom
'T is treated as a toy. Philosophers,
With bits of glass and one small beam of light,
Make mimic rainbows upon college walls,
And lecture upon raindrops­ how the light
Impinges, is refracted, bent and formed,
Ending with pious hintings to the class
With what analogies God's light is sent ­-
How mathematical his heavenly bow !


­ The painter daubs it on his varnished cloth,
And with gamboge and verdigris, makes out
A tolerable rainbow ­ to be viewed,
Admired, and bought by folly's connoisseurs.
­ As silly as the rest, the mother lifts
Her squalling child, whom rattle will not please,
Nor pap, nor coral with its silver bells,
To look upon the rainbow­ But too gross
Such gaze ­ and, folding up its heavenly robes,
"Like as a garment," on the meteor rolls.


"The Heavens shall pass away, as doth a scroll" -­
Like as a scroll they stand. O! who that marked
That page of Heaven's bright book­ when a new light
Was broad upon his vision ­ (when the world
Turned from the sun, and the sun's worldly day)
But thought­all else forgot­but thought on Thee ;
Nor painted ­ nor philosophized ­ nor smiled.


The sun is of our system, but the stars
Are set in Heaven. The day is made for man.
­ At such a time ­ with such a gloried sky,
Even man feels that the night is made for God.

John Brainard

The Lost Pleiad

O! How calm and how beautiful -- look at the night !
The planets are wheeling in pathways of light ;
And the lover, or poet, with heart, or with eye,
Sends his gaze with a tear, or his soul with a sigh.


But from Fesole's summit the Tuscan looked forth,
To eastward and westward, to south and to north ;
Neither planet nor star could his vision delight,
'Till his own bright Pleiades should rise to his sight.
They rose, and he numbered their glittering train --
They shone bright as he counted them over again ;


But the star of his love, the bright gem of the cluster,
Arose not to lend the Pleiades its lustre.


And thus, when the splendor of beauty has blazed,
On light and on loveliness, how have we gazed !
And how sad have we turned from the sight, when we found
That the fairest and sweetest was "not on the ground".

John Brainard

The Two Comets

There once dwelt in Olympus some notable oddities,
For their wild singularities called Gods and Goddesses. ­-
But one in particular beat 'em all hollow,
Whose name, style, and title was Phœbus Apollo.


Now Phœb. was a genius ­his hand he could turn
To any thing, every thing genius can learn :
Bright, sensible, graceful, cute, spirited, handy,
Well bred, well behaved ­ a celestial Dandy !
An eloquent god, though he didn't say much ;
But he drew a long bow, spoke Greek, Latin, and Dutch ;
A doctor, a poet, a soarer, a diver,
And of horses in harness an excellent driver.


He would tackle his steeds to the wheels of the sun,
And he drove up the east every morning, but one ;
When young Phaeton begged of his daddy at five,
To stay with Aurora a day, and he'd drive.
So good-natured Phœbus gave Phaey the seat,
With his mittens, change, waybill, and stage-horn complete ;
To the breeze of the morning he shook his bright locks,
Blew the lamps of the night out, and mounted the box.
The crack of his whip, like the breaking of day,
Warmed the wax in the ears of the leaders, and they
With a snort, like the fog of the morning, cleared out.
For the west, as young Phaey meant to get there about
Two hours before sunset


He looked at his "turnip",
And to make the delay of the old line concern up,
He gave 'em the reins; and from Aries to Cancer,
The style of his drive on the road seemed to answer ;
But at Leo, the ears of the near-wheel horse pricked,
And at Virgo the heels of the off leader kicked ;
Over Libra the whiffle-tree broke in the middle,
And the traces snapped short, like the strings of a fiddle.
One wheel struck near Scorpio, who gave it a roll,
And set it to buzz, like a top, round the pole ;
While the other whizzed back with its linchpin and hub,
Or, more learnedly speaking, its nucleus or hub ;
And, whether in earnest, or whether in fun,
He carried away a few locks of the sun.


The state of poor Phaeton's coach was a blue one,
And Jupiter ordered Apollo a new one ;
But our driver felt rather too proud to say "Whoa,"
Letting horses, and harness, and every thing go
At their terrified pleasure abroad; and the muse
Says, they cut to this day just what capers they choose ;
That the eyes of the chargers as meteors shine forth ;
That their manes stream along in the lights of the north ;
That the wheels which are missing are comets, that run
As fast as they did when they carried the sun ;
And still pushing forward, though never arriving,
Think the west is before them, and Phaeton driving.

John Brainard

To the Moon

Bless thy bright face ! though often blessed before
By raving maniac and by pensive fool ;
One would say something more-- but who as yet,
When looking at thee in the deep blue sky,
Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart ?
Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain. At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt
That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh
The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon.
Bards, who -- ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played
The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love, Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole,
Knew better of the Moon. 'T was there they found
Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy's happy dreams,
And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar
From waking discords, and from daylight jars.
There Ariosto puts the widow's weeds
When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again,
And there the sad maid's innocence -- 't is there


That broken vows and empty promises,
All good intentions, with no answering deed
To anchor them on the substantial earth,
Are shrewdly packed. -- And could he think that thou,
So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene,
Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes ?
I'd rather think as puling rhymsters think,
O; love-sick maidens fancy -- Yea, prefer
The dairy notion that thou art but cheese,
Green cheese -- than thus misdoubt thy honest face.

John Brainard

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