The Rainbow

On a wild cliff that rears its bold crest to the sky I stood when the Storm-king was raging on high; Dark lowered the tempest that spread o’er his brow, And like reeds in the wind the tall crags seemed to bow.

But he soon passed away with his storm banners furled, And a sun-tide of glory burst forth o’er the world, While around the dark East, ere the dayspring’s decline, Curved the bright bow of peace with its promise divine.

Beneath the broad arch in the valley below Lay the home of the rich, lay the cot of the low; There in beauty secluded the hamlet arose, And the churchyard beside lay in quiet repose.

There the aged were waiting in life’s sunset tide; And the young, they were there in the springtime of pride, And the fair, whose soft cheek, with its beauty untold, Bore the seal of the grave on its delicate mould.

There was Misery’s tear, there was Gladness and Mirth, There was Grief that bowed low at the desolate hearth,— But the bright bow rose high up to heaven above, And clasped all beneath in its ardor of love.

And I thought, O sweet emblem of glory and grace, Of a Love that clasps all in its fervent embrace;— Or the sunshine of life, or the gloom of the pall, The living, the dead, it encircles them all.