THE RAINBOW.
“The Rainbow,” by Campbell, “Triumphal Arch,” &c. is indeed a glorious piece, and worthy at once of the subject and the poet. Nor does it derogate much from his genius, though it does a little perhaps from his honesty, that he has borrowed (without acknowledgment) two or three of the finest thoughts and phrases in it from an older bard, a certain Henry Vaughan, who flourished about two centuries ago, and whose poems, says Montgomery, “amidst much harshness and obscurity, show gleams of rare excellence.” Thus these lines of Vaughan,
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye,
Thy burning, flaming arch did first descry;
When Zerah, Nahor, Haram, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot,
Did, with intentive looks, watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower
evidently suggested that fine stanza of Campbell—
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.
But the verse which follows is an admirable addition of his own.
And when its yellow lustre smiled,
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.
This finishes the picture, and makes it perfect. And Vaughan's two first lines,
Still young and fine, but what is still in view,
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new,
together with his two last,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant betwixt ALL and ONE,
obviously kindled Campbell's two closing stanzas—
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.
A splendid improvement indeed! In short, Campbell's Rainbow (or the best part of it, from the fifth verse to the end,) is but a sort of secondary of Vaughan's, though it is not in this case, as in nature, fainter, but triumphantly brighter and more beautiful than the first.1
1 Perhaps the reader may like to see Vaughan's piece entire. Here it is.
THE RAINBOW.—By Henry Vaughan.
Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new;
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye,
Thy burning, flaming arch did first descry;
When Zerah, Nahor, Haram, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot,
Did, with intentive looks, watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower.
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair;
Storms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air;
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant and low, I can in thine see Him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant betwixt All and One.