Rainbow

«A Birthday» by Christina Georgina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

***

«A Life Without Love» by Rachel Fogle

A Sunset without a sun is no sunset at all.
A life without love is no life at all.
A rainbow without colors is no rainbow at all.
And heart without feelings is no human at all.

All these things need something to be,
Either a sun or a person or a crayon,
If only to create what nature said was meant to be.

A sunset makes us feel as though the world has been born again.
A life with love lets us know it’s worth to let someone in.
A rainbow with colors thats a moment frozen in time, to be grateful for all that is beautiful and feel all the glory inside.
A heart that has feelings, well that would be me.
For I love just the thought of you and hope you feel the same for me.

Life without our love, is an emptiness I’m not sure I wish to face.
Because I know that time will never be able to erase.
I wish our love was as simple as a sunset, ready to be born again.
But I know in truth love only comes from within.
So I’ll keep watching for my sunset, and looking for that rainbow to shine someday.
Then one day maybe our love will find its way again.

***

«After The Rain» by John Carter Brown

A hush had descended, the air was quite still,
Nothing was moving beside the old mill;
Nature postponed both it’s joys and it’s pain,
Holding it’s breath until after the rain.

Waiting for heaven to give up it’s prize
Long had creation looked up to the skies,
Searching the air for the treasure contained,
Soon to be satisfied after the rain.

Pure glistening water now dropped from the sky,
Feeding the earth, once so hungry and dry;
Soaking and swelling the rivers again,
Refreshed and replete now after the rain.

The seasons had ticked with their regular rhythm,
The rainbow displayed it’s most colourful prism;
The people, like flowers, had come out again,
Bathing in sunshine, after the rain.

***

«An Address: To the Rainbow, After a Smart Summer Shower» by Thomas Campbell

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.

***

«April Rain» by Mathilde Blind

The April rain, the April rain,
Comes slanting down in fitful showers,
Then from the furrow shoots the grain,
And banks are fledged with nestling flowers;
And in grey shaw and woodland bowers
The cuckoo through the April rain
Calls once again.

The April sun, the April sun,
Glints through the rain in fitful splendour,
And in grey shaw and woodland dun
The little leaves spring forth and tender
Their infant hands, yet weak and slender,
For warmth towards the April sun,
One after one.

And between shower and shine hath birth
The rainbow’s evanescent glory;
Heaven’s light that breaks on mists of earth!
Frail symbol of our human story,
It flowers through showers where, looming hoary,
The rain-clouds flash with April mirth,
Like Life on earth.

***

«Butterfly» by David Herbert Lawrence

Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward,
strong beyond the garden-wall!
Butterfly, why do you settle on my
shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe,
Lifting your veined wings, lifting them?
big white butterfly!

Already it is October, and the wind
blows strong to the sea
from the hills where snow must have
fallen, the wind is polished with
snow.
Here in the garden, with red
geraniums, it is warm, it is warm
but the wind blows strong to sea-ward,
white butterfly, content on my shoe!

Will you go, will you go from my warm
house?
Will you climb on your big soft wings,
black-dotted,
as up an invisible rainbow, an arch
till the wind slides you sheer from the
arch-crest
and in a strange level fluttering you go
out to sea-ward, white speck!

***

«Candy Man» by Roald Dahl

Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew
Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two
The candy man, the candy man can
The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good

Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh
Soak it in the sun and make a strawberry–lemon pie
The candy man?
The candy man, the candy man can
The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good

Willy Wonka makes everything he bakes
Satisfying and delicious
Talk about your childhood wishes
You can even eat the dishes

Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream
The candy man, Willy Wonka can, the candy man can
The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good

And the world tastes good’
Cause the candy man thinks it should

***

«Cascade» by Robert Desnos

What sort of arrow split the sky and this rock?
It’s quivering, spreading like a peacock’s fan
Like the mist around the shaft and knot less feathers
Of a comet come to nest at midnight.

How blood surges from the gaping wound,
Lips already silencing murmur and cry.
One solemn finger holds back time, confusing
The witness of the eyes where the deed is written.

Silence? We still know the passwords.
Lost sentinels far from the watch fires
We smell the odor of honeysuckle and surf
Rising in the dark shadows.

Distance, let dawn leap the void at last,
And a single beam of light make a rainbow on the water
Its quiver full of reeds,
Sign of the return of archers and patriotic songs.

***

«Casual Replies» by Sarah Persson

All I see is distance,
With no spaces inbetween,
A rock without a resting place,
A deadly fall without the scream.

No light within the darkened sky,
No echo when I call,
Stranded, lost, in sinking sand,
No rainbow after rain fall.

A love lost, both with broken hearts,
No justice in the lies,
No comfort from the truth I know,
All questions hung with casual replies.

***

«Epitaph For A Darling Lady» by Dorothy Parker

All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.

Shiny day on shiny day
Tumble in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.

Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.

***

«Grief And Hope, Compared To The Rainbow After A Shower» by Eliza and Sarah Wolcott

A gentle shower of sorrow,
Best cultivates the muse;
For hope, lights up the morrow,
And sheds her joys profuse.

Like clouds before a shower,
Our better passions move;
The darkest cloud hath power,
Our faith and hope to prove.

Our trials teach contrition,
We bend beneath the storm;
Then wait with sweet submission,
The rainbow’s lovely form.

Our tears being now subsided,
The flowers of hope will spring;
In God, we have confided,
And now our joys begin.

The lamp of truth is lighted,
To guide our doubtful way;
And we are now invited,
To wait the sun’s bright ray.

See o’er the hills descending,
In majesty and love,—
With angels, swift, attending,
Our “Peace Branch” from above.

This love, thus comprehending,
We see a comely form;
‘Tis Jesus—see him bending,—
‘Tis he that lights the storm.

Like Hermon’s dews reviving,
Which fell on Zion’s hill;
When grief and hope are striving,
Hope sees a rainbow still.

***

«Hope Is A Tattered Flag» by Carl Sandburg

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.
Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in white
The evening star inviolable over the coal mines,
The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
The blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve—
Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.
The spring grass showing itself where least expected,
The rolling fluff of white clouds on a changeable sky,
The broadcast of strings from Japan, bells from Moscow,
Of the voice of the prime minister of Sweden carried
Across the sea in behalf of a world family of nations
And children singing chorals of the Christ child
And Bach being broadcast from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
And tall skyscrapers practically empty of tenants
And the hands of strong men groping for handholds
And the Salvation Army singing God loves us….

***

«Iris By Night» by Robert Frost

One misty evening, one another’s guide,
We two were groping down a Malvern side
The last wet fields and dripping hedges home.
There came a moment of confusing lights,
Such as according to belief in Rome
Were seen of old at Memphis on the heights
Before the fragments of a former sun
Could concentrate anew and rise as one.
Light was a paste of pigment in our eyes.
And then there was a moon and then a scene
So watery as to seem submarine;
In which we two stood saturated, drowned.
The clover-mingled rowan on the ground
Had taken all the water it could as dew,
And still the air was saturated too,
Its airy pressure turned to water weight.
Then a small rainbow like a trellis gate,
A very small moon-made prismatic bow,
Stood closely over us through which to go.
And then we were vouchsafed a miracle
That never yet to other two befell
And I alone of us have lived to tell.
A wonder! Bow and rainbow as it bent,
Instead of moving with us as we went
(To keep the pots of gold from being found),
It lifted from its dewy pediment
Its two mote-swimming many-colored ends
And gathered them together in a ring.
And we stood in it softly circled round
From all division time or foe can bring
In a relation of elected friends.

***

«Love Poem» by Kathleen Jessie Raine

Yours is the face that the earth turns to me,
Continuous beyond its human features lie
The mountain forms that rest against the sky.
With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun’s light
Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast
Know and hold me forever in the world’s thought,
Creation’s deep untroubled retrospect.

When your hand touches mine it is the earth
That takes me–the green grass,
And rocks and rivers; the green graves,
And children still unborn, and ancestors,
In love passed down from hand to hand from God.
Your love comes from the creation of the world,
From those paternal fingers, streaming through the clouds
That break with light the surface of the sea.

Here, where I trace your body with my hand,
Love’s presence has no end;
For these, your arms that hold me, are the world’s.
In us, the continents, clouds and oceans meet
Our arbitrary selves, extensive with the night,
Lost, in the heart’s worship, and the body’s sleep.

***

«Mattins» by George Herbert

I cannot ope mine eyes,
But thou art ready there to catch
My morning-soul and sacrifice:
Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or star, or rainbow, or a part
Of all these things or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart?
That thou should’st it so eye, and woo,
Pouring upon it all thy art,
As if that thou hadst nothing else to do?

Indeed man’s whole estate
Amounts (and richly) to serve thee:
He did not heav’n and earth create,
Yet studies them, not him by whom they be.

Teach me thy love to know;
That this new light, which now I see,
May both the work and workman show:
Then by a sun-beam I will climb to thee.

***

«More Colors To The Rainbow» by Hebert Logerie

The rainbow gets better
As we add more colors
For a more prosperous future
As we include more brothers
And more sisters this season.

We have every conceivable reason
To create a better environment
For the entire world to witness
That more hope is better than less
Under the ever-changing firmament.

The rainbow is more beautiful
When there is fairness and justice
When the world is wonderful
When all the nations are at peace
As we use every available reason.

The Rainbow gets better
As we add more flavors
Where Mother Nature is happier
As we add more colors
To create a safer environment.

***

«Ode On Melancholy» by John Keats

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

***

«On Broadway» by Claude McKay

About me young careless feet
Linger along the garish street;
Above, a hundred shouting signs
Shed down their bright fantastic glow
Upon the merry crowd and lines
Of moving carriages below.
Oh wonderful is Broadway — only
My heart, my heart is lonely.

Desire naked, linked with Passion,
Goes trutting by in brazen fashion;
From playhouse, cabaret and inn
The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze
All gay without, all glad within;
As in a dream I stand and gaze
At Broadway, shining Broadway — only
My heart, my heart is lonely.

***

«Once Upon A Summer Day» by Joseph T. Renaldi

Once upon a Summer day,
Birds chirped in a musical way,
Grass drenched in the morning dew,
The sky covered in a vast color of blue.

Once upon a summer day,
Flowers bloomed in full array,
Bright rays of sunlight spilled
Upon my garden on the hill.

Once upon a summer day,
Thunder rumbled and prolonged its stay,
But after the rain tumbled down,
This summer day wore a glorious rainbow crown.

***

«Rainbow on the Mountain» by Ruby Archer

See―the Sky has lent her jewel
To the Mountain for an hour
Has forgotten to be cruel
In a kind caprice of power

And the dusky bosom rounding
Wears the opals with an air
And a fine content abounding
In the sense of looking fair.

Now the Sky demands her crescent―
Brightest bauble of her store;
Slow it fadeth, evanescent,
And the Mountain smiles no more.

***

«Raindrops Keep On Falling» by Cheryl Tutaan

It was raining too hard outside,
Couldn’t help but think of you;
You are the loveliest person ever,
That dwells in my heart, taking me out of the blue.

The sound of the rain rhymed sweetly on my ear,
I love you Cheryl, as you whispered my name;
From you the love I’ve found, striking loudly in my veins,
Singing the love song, strumming my heart deep within.

I do love you too, my lips replied;
As I succumbed to the chill of the night;
The cold breeze filled the air,
Touching the pillow case and linen on my cheeks.

Now the rain has stopped.
I wish I could see the rainbow outside;
But then I startled, It was just a dream beneath the dark sky,
I wish I could kiss you, but we’re miles apart.

Tomorrow the sun will shine once again,
I will sleep now with a smile on my face;
Tomorrow I will bring you the love that you painted,
Believe me, I can make it all through the rain.

***

«Songs Of Joy» by William Henry Davies

Sing out, my soul, thy songs of joy;
Sing as a happy bird will sing
Beneath a rainbow’s lovely arch
In the spring.

Think not of death in thy young days;
Why shouldst thou that grim tyrant fear?
And fear him not when thou art old,
And he is near.

Strive not for gold, for greedy fools
Measure themselves by poor men never;
Their standard still being richer men,
Makes them poor ever.

Train up thy mind to feel content,
What matters then how low thy store?
What we enjoy, and not possess,
Makes rich or poor.

Filled with sweet thought, then happy I
Take not my state from other’s eyes;
What’s in my mind — not on my flesh
Or theirs — I prize.

Sing, happy soul, thy songs of joy;
Such as a Brook sings in the wood,
That all night has been strengthened by
Heaven’s purer flood.

***

«The Expression Of Love» by Freespirit Juneja

The very first dropp of rain
Makes my heart go insane
Fragrance of the earth’s aroma
Enraptures and fills my body’s stoma
Ballet of leaves on songs of winds
Makes my soul dance and sings
Sun’s penultimate rays glistening the twilight
Spreading heart’s sight far n wide
Rainbow within each dewdrop
Helps appreciating versatility of life’s job
If I combine all realms of nature
The only person whom i feature
Whose presence makes me alive
Who propels me to strive
Who makes me fly high and above
O my heart it’s u
Embrace me with Your love, your love and your love

***

«The Kingfisher» by William Henry Davies

It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues;
And, as her mother’s name was Tears,
So runs it in my blood to choose
For haunts the lonely pools, and keep
In company with trees that weep.
Go you and, with such glorious hues,
Live with proud peacocks in green parks;
On lawns as smooth as shining glass,
Let every feather show its marks;
Get thee on boughs and clap thy wings
Before the windows of proud kings.
Nay, lovely Bird, thou art not vain;
Thou hast no proud, ambitious mind;
I also love a quiet place
That’s green, away from all mankind;
A lonely pool, and let a tree
Sigh with her bosom over me.

***

«The Old Wooden Bridge» by Susan Williams

in the darkness up ahead
just beyond the last fork in the road
there is an old wooden bridge
eons of years old
.
it has been there since the beginning of time
and it creaks and groans underfoot
but it will still take you where
you don’t want to go
.
here is where your ancient enemy waits for you
in the gloom and doom of past dark and dreary choices
waiting out there on a mossy span for you and you alone
waiting out there where no lamp or halo of light has ever shone
.
he waits out there for thee and me
in that darkness that stretches over the sea
waits to block the way to the great beyond
where we should have could have gone
.
he waits out there where there is no hope
after the last fork in the road is taken
this is no cuddly or pretty rainbow bridge
and no one you want to meet is waiting there for thee or me.

***

«The Rainbow» by Thomas Campbell

Triumphal arch, that fill’st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art; —

Still seem; as to my childhood’s sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation’s face
Enchantment’s veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

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!

And when its yellow luster smiled
O’er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse’s eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the prophet’s theme!

The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O’er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

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.

***

«The Rainbow» by Waller Smith 

Love is a rainbow that appears
When heaven’s sunshine lights earth’s tears.

All varied colors of the light
Within its beauteous arch unite:

There Passion’s glowing crimson hue
Burns near Truth’s rich and deathless blue;

And Jealousy’s green lights unfold
‘Mid Pleasure’s tints of flame and gold.

O dark life’s stormy sky would seem,
If love’s clear rainbow did not gleam!

***

«The Rainbow» by Charlotte Richardson

Soft falls the shower, the thunders cease!

And see the messenger of peace

Illumes the eastern skies;

Blest sign of firm unchanging love!

While others seek the cause to prove,

That bids thy beauties rise.

My soul, content with humbler views,

Well pleased admires thy varied hues,

And can with joy behold

Thy beauteous form, and wondering gaze

Enraptured on thy mingled rays

Of purple, green, and gold.

Enough for me to deem divine

The hand that paints each glowing line;

To think that thou art given

A transient gleam of that bright place

Where Beauty owns celestial grace,

A faint display of Heaven!

***

«The Rainbow» by John Keble

A fragment of a rainbow bright
Through the moist air I see,
All dark and damp on yonder height,
All bright and clear to me.

An hour ago the storm was here,
The gleam was far behind;
So will our joys and grief appear,
When earth has ceased to blind.

Grief will be joy if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray,
Joy will be grief if no faint pledge
Be there of heavenly day.

***

«The Treasure» by Rupert Brooke

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again
With dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I’ll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o’er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.

***

«When The Lamp Is Shattered» by Percy Bysshe Shelley

When the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow’s glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendor
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart’s echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:–
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman’s knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee,
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.