TO THE RAINBOW.
* * * * *
When o’er the green undeluged Earth,
Heaven’s covenant thou didst shine,
How came the World’s gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow luster smiled
O’er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang,
On earth deliver’d from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse’s eye
Unraptur’d greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet’s theme!
The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshen’d fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle cast
O’er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirror’d in the Ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!
As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.
For faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.
Th. Campbell, 1777–1844.