CLOUD-THING

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

—William Wordsworth

What they call Rainbow, that too is a cloud,
purple and scarlet and green to see.

—Xenophanes

For air and ether are separating off from the surrounding mass. And what surrounds is limitless in quantity.

—Anaxagoras :: Physics

And it seems to me that that which has intelligence is what men call the Air, and that this is what governs all and has power over all. For it is this which seems to me to be God and it reaches everywhere, disposes all things, and is in everything, and there is nothing that does not partake of it.

—Diogenes of Apollonia

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow?

—David Mitchell :: Cloud Atlas

A curious Cloud surprised the Sky,
'Twas like a sheet with Horns;
The sheet was Blue—
The Antlers Gray—
It almost touched the lawns.

So low it leaned—then statelier drew—
And trailed like robes away,
A Queen adown a satin aisle
Had not the majesty.

—Emily Dickinson