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Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major
English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as
well as epic, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in
his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but
recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key
member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord
Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary
Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to
the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and
The Masque of Anarchy. His other major works include a groundbreaking verse
drama The Cenci (1819) and long, visionary poems such as Queen Mab (later
reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs,
Prometheus Unbound (1820)—widely considered to be his masterpiece,—
Hellas: A Lyrical Drama (1821), and his final, unfinished work, The Triumph
of Life (1822).

Shelley's close circle of friends included some of the most important

progressive thinkers of the day, including his father-in-law, the philosopher
William Godwin and Leigh Hunt. Though Shelley's poetry and prose output
remained steady throughout his life, most publishers and journals declined to
publish his work for fear of being arrested for either blasphemy or sedition.
Shelley's poetry sometimes had only an underground readership during his day,
but his poetic achievements are widely recognized today, and his advanced
political and social thought impacted the Chartist and other movements in
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England, and reach down to the present day. Shelley's theories of economics
and morality, for example, had a profound influence on Karl Marx; his early—
perhaps first—writings on nonviolent resistance influenced both Leo Tolstoy
and Mahatma Gandhi.
THE CLOUD POEM
The cloud is a metaphor for the unending cycle of nature: "I silently laugh at
my own cenotaph/ ... I arise and unbuild it again." As with the wind and the
leaves in "Ode to the West Wind", the skylark in "To a Skylark", and the plant
in "The Sensitive Plant", Shelley endows the cloud with sentient traits that
personify the forces of nature.

In "The Cloud", Shelley relies on the imagery of transformation or

metamorphosis, a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth: "I change, but I cannot die."
Mutability or change is a fact of physical nature.

Lightning or electricity is the "pilot" or guide for the cloud. Lightning is

attracted to the "genii" in the earth which results in lightning flashes. The genii
symbolize the positive charge of the surface of the earth while the cloud
possesses a negative charge.

The cloud is a personification and a metaphor for the perpetual cycle of

transformation and change in nature. All life and matter are interconnected and
undergo unending change and metamorphosis.

POEM ANALYSIS
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
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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.
Summary

The cloud brings rain, moisture, hail, and snow, and gives shade. It is infused
with electricity which acts as its guide in the form of lightning accompanied by
thunder. When the cloud covers the rising sun, it causes its beams to be spread
out over the sky. At evening the cloud floats over the setting sun like a bird; at
night, the cloud provides a thin covering for the moon. Where the cloud cover is
removed by the wind, the moon and stars are reflected in the earth's bodies of
water.
The cloud is not only capable of changing but also not capable of dying. It
becomes the gardener that brings rain to the thirsty flowers, a nurse who shades
the child as the child is having a nap in the midday sun, a bird that shakes its
dew over the buds, and a thresher who beats the seeds off after harvesting the
crops. It sleeps, laughs, floats, pursues a beloved, folds its wings like a bird, it
broods, marches through the rainbow triumphantly. This is obviously the
common symbol of the Shelleyan revolution.
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The first stanza states the various activities and functions of the cloud. It brings
fresh showers from seas and rivers for thirsty flowers. It provides shade for the
leaves when they sleep during the daytime. It showers down upon buds that
open up after being fed in this manner. Sometimes, the cloud also brings the
hail that covers the green plains with a white coat, but soon enough it dissolves
this hail with rain.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,

And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
In the second stanza the poet describes some more of the cloud’s activities. It
disturbs the snow on mountaintops, and this makes the tall pine tree groan in
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surprise. At night, the snow forms its pillow while it sleeps in the arms of the
storm. Lightning guides the cloud over water and land, because it is attracted by
its love for the genii, the negatively charged counterpart of the positive charge
in the lightning above, or the spirits that live below the purple sea. In search, of
this love, lightning travels everywhere taking the cloud with it. During his
journey, the cloud enjoys itself in the smile of the blue sky, while lightening
dissolves itself in tears of rain. The details of first stanza and second stanza
evoke both gentle and harsh qualities of the cloud; it is not only the agent of
nursing baby plants, it also threatens and even destroys the old pine trees ( in
Shelley, the old trees are rooted evil institutions and conventions of
inhumanity).

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
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With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
The third stanza describes the cloud’s game with the sun. The cloud says the red
colored sun, with its large eyes and its burning feathers, jumps on to the cloud’s
sailing cradle when the morning star loses its shine. Its position is similar to an
eagle sitting for a moment on the top of a mountain, which is moved hither and
thither by the earthquake. When the sunset announces the end of the day,
singing its song of rest and love from the sea beneath, when the red covering
falls upon the whole world from the sky, the cloud rests like a dove, sitting in
its nest with folded wings. This image evokes the Biblical image of the Holy
Spirit, the one universal creative force, evoking the cloud significance as a
universally creative force of the nature.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
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Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
In the forth stanza, we find the cloud talking about the moon. It says that the
moon guides over the soft, silken floor of the cloud, the floor that has been
prepared by the midnight breezes that scatter the cloud here and there. At some
places, where the moon places its feet, the cloud’s thin roof is rent open,
through which the stars peep and stare. When, after staring, the stars turn round
and run away, the cloud laughs at them. Then, the cloud widens the hole in its
tent-shaped roof and consequently moonlight floods all objects on the earth’s
surface. The moon is then reflected by the calm surface of lakes, rivers and
seas, till is seems that a part of the sky has fallen down. Here, the cloud is the
type of altocumulus. The images of the playful moon and stars evoke the idea of
the playfulness of the creative forces like the cloud and its allies.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
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Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
In the fifth stanza, the cloud describes the manner in which it restricts the moon
and the sun. It restricts the sun’s throne with a bright circle, while it creates a
circle of pearls round the moon’s throne. When its banner is spread across the
sky by the stormy wind, it makes the bright volcanoes dim and the stars spin
and swim. It hangs like a roof over a torrential sea, and protects it from the heat
of the sun. It is itself supported in its roof-like position by the mountains. The
multi-colored rainbow forms a triumphal arch, through which it marches,
attended by the hurricane, fire and snow, pushed by the stormy breeze. Here,
the cloud changes from the form of cirrostratus to that of stratocumulus.

6.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
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In the final stanza, the cloud describes its origin; it says that it is the
daughter of earth and water, and an infant nursed by the sky. It passes through
the holes in the oceans and the shores. It changes, but it does not die. The cloud
is one thing and also many things; it changes its forms but it is the same essence
of life, growth and change in the nature. It is the agent of the cycle of life, for it
changes seasons and sustains all living beings by bringing the rain, giving
shade, letting the sun shine when needed, and bringing the dry autumn for
plants to wither and give way to the next spring. It is not only gentle like a
child, it is also terrible like a ghost; it supports the system of life ceaselessly and
in numberless ways.

The poem “The Cloud” by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a lyric, written in anapestic
meter, alternating in line lengths between tetrameter and trimeter. In “The
Cloud,” Shelly invokes the idea of a cloud as an entity narrating her existence in
various aspects. Told in 6 stanzas, Shelley has this cloud tell a unique
perspective on what she is in each one.

In the first stanza, we come to understand the cloud in terms of her functions in
the cycle of nature, in regards to the cycle of water and the cycle of plant life.
The cloud brings water to nourish the plants and vegetation in the form of rain,
which is created from the evaporated water of bodies of water. The cloud acts
as shelter for the same vegetation from the sweltering heat of the Sun during its
hottest hours. The moisture provided by the cloud also serves to awaken
budding flowers so they may open to absorb the Sun’s rays. Finally, the cloud
also serves reignite the life of plants after they have died, as hail threshes the
plants (Lynch 832, note 1), and washes the grain back into the soil, starting the
plant cycle over.
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The second stanza describes the cloud as serene, and indifferent to what goes on
beneath her, while simultaneously describing her as a vessel for disruption and
unrest. As the cloud blasts trees with snow and wind, disturbing the
mountaintops and rooted trees, she sleeps peacefully and unbothered. The cloud
is harboring her counterpart, lightning, who, unlike the cloud, is erratic and
restless. Lightning guides the cloud across the sky to find lightning’s opposite
charge, where her discharges as bolts of lightning and claps of thunder, all the
while the cloud sits placid and unaffected by lightning’s energy.

The third stanza portrays how the cloud accompanies the Sun from dawn to
dusk. As the Sun rises, he joins the cloud to orbit across the skies, now that
night is gone and the stars have disappeared. The Sun is compared to an eagle
that rests on a mountain peak during an earthquake, joining the mountain for a
short time in its movement. The Sun sets and leaves the sky with the pink-hue
of sunset, and the cloud is left to wait until his return.

The fourth stanza depictures the movement of the Moon over the cloud. The
Moon is described as being alit by the Sun’s rays, and she is seen gliding across
the thin cloud scattered by the “midnight breezes” (Shelley 48). Gaps in the
cloud line are attributed to minor disturbances by the moon. These gaps reveal
the stars that are quickly hidden away by the shifting cloud. The Moon is then
reflected in bodies of water as the cloud opens up to reveal her.

The fifth stanza describes the restrictions the cloud imposes on both the Sun and
Moon, guarding the lands and seas. The cloud is pictured as a belt around both
the Sun and Moon, limiting their ability to affect the earth. The Moon is veiled
by the cloud, who is spread across the sky by winds, and objects below become
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less visible and the stars disappear from view. The cloud covers the sea and
protects it from the Sun’s heat, supported at such a height by the mountains.
The cloud is pushed through a rainbow, propelled by the forces of the wind.
The rainbow is described as originating from the light of the Sun passing
through, created by light’s reflection.

The sixth and final stanza narrates the origin of the cloud, and her continuously
changing form through her unending cycle of death and rebirth. The cloud
originates from bodies of water and the moisture found in within the earth and
its inhabitants. She is composed through the Sun’s intervention, who’s heat
evaporates the water and moisture. Although the cloud is emptied from the sky
as rain, and the sky is bright from the Sun’s rays, the cloud is continuously
recreated and undone in a never-ending cycle.