Volume 32 — THE RAINBOW.

BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

Mountain! that first received the foot of man— Giving him shelter, when the shoreless flood Went surging by, that whelmed a buried world— I see thee in thy lonely grandeur rise— I see the white-haired Patriarch, as he knelt Beside his earthen altar, 'mid his sons, While beat in praise the only pulse of life Upon this buried planet,— O'er the gorged And furrowed soil, swept forth a numerous train, Horned, or cloven-footed, fierce, or tame, While, mixed with song, the sound of countless wings, His rescued prisoners, fanned the ambient air. The sun drew near his setting, clothed in gold, But on the Patriarch, ere from prayer he rose, A darkly-cinctured cloud chill tears had wept, And rain-drops lay upon his silver hairs. Then burst an arch of wondrous radiance forth, Spanning the vaulted skies. Its mystic scroll Proclaimed the amnesty that pitying Heaven Granted to earth, all desolate and void. Oh signet-ring, with which the Almighty sealed His treaty with the remnant of the clay That shrank before him, to remotest time Stamp wisdom on the souls that turn to thee. Unswerving teacher, who four thousand years Hast ne'er withheld thy lesson, but unfurled As shower and sunbeam bade, thy glorious scroll,— Oft, 'mid the summer's day, I musing sit At my lone casement, to be taught of thee. Born of the tear-drop and the smile, methinks, Thou hast affinity with man, for such His elements, and pilgrimage below. Our span of strength and beauty fades like thine, Yet stays its fabric on eternal truth And boundless mercy. The wild floods may come— The everlasting fountains burst their bounds— The exploring dove without a leaf return— Yea, the fires glow that melt the solid rock, And earth be wrecked: What then?—be still, my soul, Enter thine Ark—God's promise cannot fail— For surely as yon rainbow tints the cloud, His truth, thine Ararat, will shelter thee.