“Clouds are thoughts without words.” – Mark Strand

One Little Cloud Is Out To-day
by Annette Wynne
One little cloud is out to-day,
One little cloud, and a whole big sky for play—
What a big place for a little one,
Shine out, you big round sun,
Shine out and frighten the little lone cloud, I pray,
The sun shone out and the cloud ran away!

The Rainbow
by Christina Rossetti
Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier far than these.

The Clouds
by Anonymous
“Clouds that wander through the sky,
Sometimes low and sometimes high;
In the darkness of the night,
In the sunshine warm and bright.
Ah! I wonder much if you
Have any useful work to do.”

The Cloud
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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.

To a Cloud
by William Cullen Bryant
Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
Thy shadow o’er the vale moves slow;
Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train
As cool it comes along the grain.

Clouds
by John Brainard
Ye clouds, who are the ornament of heaven,
Who give to it its gayest shadowings,
And its most awful glories; ye who roll
In the dark tempest, or at dewy evening
Hang low in tenderest beauty; ye who, ever
Changing your Protean aspects, now are gather’d,
Like fleecy piles, when the mid sun is brightest,
Even in the height of heaven, and there repose,

In Cloudy Weather
by Ruby Archer
Where is my halcyon blue?
The grudging sky is overcast.
Where is my dowering sun?
A glory past.

Clouds
by Frank Dempster Sherman
The sky is full of clouds to-day,
And idly, to and fro,
Like sheep across the pasture, they
Across the heavens go.
I hear the wind with merry noise
Around the housetops sweep,
And dream it is the shepherd boys,—
They’re driving home their sheep.

Photos by the author