An Address: To The Rainbow, After A Smart Summer Shower

Lovely Iris, proudly arching
O’er the lately potent storm,
On thy top the vapours perching,
Yet obscure thy lovely form.
See the clouds behind thee hover,
Gently drops the falling rain;
The prone descending torrent over,
Leaves the lately delug’d plain.
Now the sun at even’ descending,
Heaves thy towering zenith high,
Thy transparent shoulders bending,
‘Neath the burden of the sky.
Gilded by thy glowing basis,
See the distant mountains shine;
From the vale the rustic gazes,
At a structure so divine.
Now thy colours how they brighten,
Bending o’er the hollow vale,
Where the dreary prospects lighten,
As the damps again exhale.
Light and shade so sweetly blended,
Mock the artist’s tissue loom,
When the sun with beams extended,
Paints thy circle on the gloom.
Say, proud arch—Heaven’s architecture,
Built in a celestial taste,
Whence thy emblematic structure,
Or the end by thee express’d?
Auspicious, thou denotes that Heav’n
Ne’er will deluge earth again,
And this resplendent arch is given,
The floating waters off to drain.