The Cloud

I saw an angry cloud which flung
Its blackness on the evening sky;
It writhed and gibbered as it hung
Like a vast dragon come to die.

Who was the god that put it there?—
What tortured artist took his wry
Soul and the face of his despair
And thrust it on the world on high.

And threatening apocalypse?
I saw, but knew not who or why—
But a dark dread had thinned the lips
Of Night, and terror stirred her eye.

—J.C.B.