The Unmoving Cloud
The Unmoving Cloud - context Summary
Exile and Eastern Solitude
The poem presents a rainbound, hushed scene in which the speaker remains motionless, drinking wine by an eastern window while roads and rivers swallow the landscape. Friends are absent and human contact fails, even as spring life—trees and birds—seems to reach toward him without bridging the gap. The mood is one of introspective isolation and muted consolation, reflecting the poet’s sense of exile and distance from others.
Read Complete AnalysesI The clouds have gathered, and gathered, and the rain falls and falls, The eight ply of the heavens are all folded into one darkness, And the wide, flat road stretches out. I stop in my room toward the East, quiet, quiet, I pat my new cask of wine. My friends are estranged, or far distant, I bow my head and stand still. II Rain, rain, and the clouds have gathered, The eight ply of the heavens are darkness, The flat land is turned into river. 'Wine, wine, here is wine!' I drink by my eastern window. I think of talking and man, And no boat, no carriage, approaches. III The trees in my east-looking garden are bursting out with new twigs, They try to stir new affection, And men say the sun and moon keep on moving because they can't find a soft seat. The birds flutter to rest in my tree, and I think I have heard them saying, 'It is not that there are no other men But we like this fellow the best, But however we long to speak He can not know of our sorrow.'
Feel free to be first to leave comment.