FAIR as the feather of a dove
That has in gloom been dipt;
Like to a smile, that, flung from love,
Its banishment hath wept;
See yonder little cloud swims by,
As if it sprung to birth,
Mid summer sunshine of the sky,
And winter storms of earth.
Alas! there ne'er was angel yet
Who from her heaven took wing,
But when the air of earth she met
Became a fallen thing:
And thus yon cloud, that seems so dim,
When near our earth 'tis driven,
Would look all light, if it would skim
Far upward nearer Heaven.