Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

The Rainbow

SOFT falls the mild, reviving shower
 From April's changeful skies,
And rain-drops bend each trembling flower
 They tinge with richer dyes.

Soon shall their genial influence call
 A thousand buds to day,
Which, waiting but their balmy fall,
 In hidden beauty lay.

E'en now full many a blossom's bell
 With fragrance fills the shade;
And verdure clothes each grassy dell,
 In brighter tints arrayed.

But mark! what arch of varied hue
 From heaven to earth is bowed?
Haste, ere it vanish, haste to view
 The Rainbow in the cloud.

How bright its glory! there behold
 The emerald's verdant rays,
The topaz blends its hue of gold
 With the deep ruby's blaze.

Yet not alone to charm thy sight
 Was given the vision fair;?
Gaze on that arch of colored light,
 And read God's mercy there.

It tells us that the mighty deep,
 Fast by th' Eternal chained,
No more o'er earth's domains shall sweep,
 Awful and unrestrained.

It tells that seasons, heat and cold,
 Fixed by his sovereign will,
Shall, in their course, bid man behold
 Seed-time and harvest still;

That still the flower shall deck the field,
 When vernal zephyrs blow;
That still the vine its fruit will yield,
 When autumn sun-beams glow.

Then, child of that fair earth! which yet
 Smiles with each charm endowed,
Bless thou His name, whose mercy set
 The Rainbow in the cloud!

1. Taliesin’s Prophecy
2. Our Lady’s Well
3. Druid Chorus on the Landing of the Romans
4. The Dial of Flowers
5. Lines Written for the Album at Rosanna

Patrick Brontë The Rainbow ("The shower is past, and the sky")

Print

1448 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version