The Rainbow

BRIGHT pledge of peace and sunshine! the surety

Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distant and low, I can in thine see Him Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, And minds the Covenant 'twixt All and One.

FELICIA HEMANS.

BOW of beauty, arching o'er us, tinted with un

earthly dyes,

Stealing silently before us on the cloud of stormy skies; In the beaming radiance seeming, like an angel-path from heaven;

Or a vision to our dreaming, of some fairy fabric given.

Thou art Mercy's emblem, brightly smiling through an angry frown;

Fairer for the gloom, as nightly glow the gems in Ether's crown.

And when wrath is darkest glooming on the countenance divine,

Love's and Mercy's light assuming, like the rainbow it doth shine.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

Translation of the Patriarch
(Genesis v. 24.)

NO tombstone saw they there,

No sepulchre's pallid gleam;

But a quiver went through the blue bright air,
Like a thrill of a glorious dream.

And the stately palm trees bowed,

By old Euphrates' tide;

And the deep sky glowed, like a burning cloud,

Or a spirit glorified.

When the good old Patriarch's footsteps trod
The sapphire pavements, that lead to God.

Where was he, when the gates

Of Heaven were opened wide? Praying alone, like one that waits, By Tigris' sacred tide.

Or by some lonely shore

Where the hollow echo dwells,

And sounding sea beats evermore,

'Mid rocks and strange bright shells?

Or chanting God's praises, with happy cheer,

When the songs of the angels broke on his ear?

And the gray Chaldean plains

With a golden radiance shone,

As Earth caught full the light that reigns
Beside the Eternal Throne.

Far off, and low, she heard

The flow of Life's bright stream

And the music of strange sweet melodies
That haunts her like a dream;

And only God's angels, with solemn eye,
Saw the glorious pageant passing by.

And still the rocks frown high,

Amid the shadows lone-
But their echoes nevermore reply
To the sweet angelic tone;

And an awful mystery fills

That land of unknown graves,

And ever thrills the solemn hills
That guard Euphrates' waves;

But the word of God through ages dim,
Reveals how Enoch went home to Him.

LUCY A. Randall.

Abraham and His Gods

BENEATH the full-eyed Syrian moon,

The Patriarch, lost in reverence, raised His consecrated head, and soon

He knelt and worshipped while he gazed: "Surely that glorious Orb on high Must be the Lord of earth and sky.”

Slowly towards its central throne

The glory rose, yet paused not there But seemed by influence not its own

Drawn downwards through the western air Until it wholly sunk away,

And the soft Stars had all the sway.

Then to the hierarchy of light.

With face upturned the sage remained— "At least Ye stand forever bright

Your power has never waxed or waned!" Even while he spoke, their work was done Drowned in the overflowing Sun.

Eastward he bent his eager eyes

"Creatures of Night! false gods and frail!
Take not the worship of the wise;
There is the Deity we hail.
Fountain of light, and warmth, and love
He only bears our hearts above."

Yet was that One-that radiant One
Who seemed so absolute a King,

Only ordained his round to run
And pass like each created thing;
He rested not in noonday prime
But fell beneath the strength of time.

Then like one laboring without hope
To bring his toil to fruitful end,
And powerless to discern the scope
Whereto his aspirations tend,

Still Abraham prayed day and night
"God! Teach me to what God to pray."

Nor long in vain; an inward Light
Arose to which the sun is pale.
The knowledge of the Infinite,

The sense of Truth that must prevail:The presence of the only Lord

By angels and by men adored.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (Lord Houghton).

Abraham

WILL sing a song of heroes, Crowned with manhood's diadem, Men that lift us when we love them Into nobler life with them.

I will sing a song of heroes

To their God-sent mission true, From the ruin of the old time Grandly forth to shape the new:

Men that, like a strong-winged zephyr,
Come with freshness and with power,
Bracing fearful hearts to grapple
With the problem of the hour:

Men whose prophet-voice of warning
Stirs the dull, and spurs the slow,
Till the big heart of a people
Swells with hopeful overflow.

I will sing the song of Terah,
Abraham in tented state,

With his sheep and goats and asses,
Bearing high behests from Fate;

Journeying from beyond Euphrates, Where cool Orfa's bubbling well Lured the Greek and lured the Roman, By its verdurous fringe to dwell.

When he left the flaming idols,
Sun by day and Moon by night,
To believe in something deeper
Than the shows that brush the sight,

And, as a traveller wisely trusteth
To a practiced guide and true,

So he owned the Voice that called him
From the faithless Heathen crew.

And he travelled from Damascus
Southward where the torrent tide
Of the sons of Ammon mingles
With the Jordan's swelling pride.

To the pleasant land of Schechem,
To the flowered and fragrant ground
'Twixt Mount Ebal and Gerizim,
Where the bubbling wells abound.

To the stony slopes of Bethel,
And to Hebron's greening glade,
Where the grapes with weighty fruitage
Droop beneath the leafy shade.

And he pitched his tent in Mamre, 'Neath an oak-tree tall and broad

And with pious care an altar

Built there to the one true God.

And the voice of God came near him,
And the angels of the Lord
'Neath the broad and leafy oak-tree
Knew his hospitable board;