The Rainbow
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert, with the warbling
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence, blending all, the sweeten'd zephyr springs.
Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye
The various twine of light, by thee
From the white mingling maze.
Not so the boy;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and
To catch the falling glory; but
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.
James Thomson
Other author posts
Rule Britannia! With Variations
When Britain first, at heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main; This was the charter of the land, And guardian Angels sung this strain: Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves The nations, not so ...
Epilogue To Tancred And Sigismunda
Cramm'd to the throat with wholesome moral stuff, Alas poor audience you have had enough
Death of the Stag
The stag, too, singled from the herd, where He ranged, the branching monarch of the shade, Before the tempest drives At first, in
To Amanda - Come Dear Amanda Quit The Town
Come, dear Amanda, quit the town, And to the rural hamlets fly; Behold the wintry storms are gone;
