A LARK SINGING IN A RAINBOW.

Fraught with a transient, frozen shower

If a cloud should haply lower,

Sailing o’er the landscape dark,

Mute, on a sudden, is the lark;

But when gleams the sun again

O’er the pearl-besprinkled plain,

And from behind his watery vail

Looks through the thin descending hail;

She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,

Salutes the blithe return of light,

And high her tuneful track pursues

Through the rainbow’s melting hues.

Thomas Warton, 1728–1790.