A rainbow in the morning
Is the Shepherd's warning;
But a rainbow at night
Is the Shepherd's delight.
What skilful limner e'er would choose
To paint the rainbow's varying hues,
Unless to mortal it were given
To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?
Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky
Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray,
Each in the other melting.
Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
Hung on the shower that fronts the golden West,
The rainbow bursts like magic on mine eyes!
In hues of ancient promise there imprest;
Frail in its date, eternal in its guise.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him
Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne,
And minds the covenant between all and One.
RAVEN
That Raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak)
Bodes me no good.
The Raven's house is built with reeds,—
Sing woe, and alas is me!
And the Raven's couch is spread with weeds,
High on the hollow tree;
And the Raven himself, telling his beads
In penance for his past misdeeds,
Upon the top I see.
The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
White as the whitest dove's unsullied breast,
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl
His tongue, his prating tongue had changed him quite
To sooty blackness from the purest white.
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore,—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
And the Raven, never flitting,
Still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas
Just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have air the seeining
Of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming
Throws his shadow on the floor,
And my soul from out that shadow,
That lies floating on the floor,
Shall be lifted—nevermore.
The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all.
Did ever raven sing so like a lark,
That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
READING
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.
Reading maketh a full man.
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.
If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.
We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it.
The mind, relaxing into needful sport,
Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style,
Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.