Temperamental

The late spring weather has been as temperamental and unpredictable as a wild horse this past week or so. Clouds of all colors roll overhead, bringing rain, wind and hail, but making room for occasional bright sun. It doesn't mind raining while the sun shines, and it doesn't mind being sunny at 7 PM. It has been gloriously dramatic. Just forget making any plans that depend on the weather. Might as well sit back and watch the spectacle.


And now for a poem from the English Romantic period, illustrated by this week's western Oregon weather:

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 noon-day 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.

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.