Rainbow

“ Just then a cloud passed ever, and on the cloud the beautiful rainbow had cast its arch.
"There, see, my son," said the father, "there are all your dew drops; the sun has taken them up only to set them forth in greater brightness in the sky." ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a fine rainbow in the sky this evening, so bright and strong that it shows again in a reflected bow on the clouds behind it. A rainbow is a heartsome thing, for it reminds us of a promise made long ago, and faithfully kept. ”

“ To the checkered emblem of the rainbow she adds sweeping rays of color, typifying sunbeams; below the many-angled cloud group, she inserts random pencil lines of rain; or she softens the rigid meander, signifying lightning, with graceful interlacing, and shaded tints. Not confining herself alone to these traditional devices, she invents her own methods to introduce curious, realistic figures of common objects,—her grass brush, wooden weaving fork, a stalk of corn, a bow, an arrow, or a plume of feathers from a dancer's mask. ”

“ It was the time of sunset, the clouds were gloriously tinted, and a magnificent spectacle it was to see the great masses of cloud, overspread with all the colours of the rainbow, ever changing as the moments passed; rose, violet, yellow, green, and crimson softly mingling their shades until the heavens appeared like a coloured mountain range. Red clouds bordered with blue and white shaded with black, grey softly tinged with rose, an exquisite blending of each colour with another. ”

“ The rainbow appears when one part of the sky is clear, which intimates mercy remembered in the midst of wrath; and the clouds are hemmed as it were with the rainbow, that they may not overspread the heavens, for the bow is coloured rain or the edges of a cloud gilded. ”

“ The rainbow expands its radiant circle, the rose and lily sparkle in the sunshine; the green fields and golden grain diversify the landscape by their vivid colors. But there are no colors; there is no light; there are only undulations in the air that set the optic nerve vibrating. ”

“ The rainbow is an object which has engaged universal attention, and its beautiful colours and form have excited universal admiration. The poets have embellished their writings with many beautiful allusions to this splendid meteor; and the playful school-boy, while viewing the ‘bright enchantment,’ has frequently run ‘to catch the falling glory.’ When its arch rests on the opposite sides of a narrow valley, or on the summits of two adjacent mountains, its appearance is both beautiful and grand. ”

“ He, we are assured, can fade from the landscape with the beautiful elusiveness of a rainbow, and can develop himself elsewhere, in or out of the landscape, with a precision with which the rainbow cannot hope to compete. ”

“ First, the colours of the rainbow, beautiful and various as they are, blend into the purest white; secondly, a rainbow, even for the most careless, and those most untouched by natural beauty, is one of the most inherently attractive things in the world; thirdly—a rainbow is God's appointed sign of hope, hope founded on the faithfulness of God: "While the earth remaineth, winter and summer, seed time and harvest shall not cease" ”

“ A rainbow is not more rich in hues, a bubble that glitters in the sun is not more light and glossy, a bed of tulips is not more gaudy. A flight of angels with rosy hues and winged glories connects the heavenly and the earthly groups like a garland of blushing flowers. The skill and delicacy of this composition is equal to its brilliancy of effect. ”

“ As the colourless cloud receives in its bosom, the variety of transient hues displayed in the rainbow; so the inscrutable spirit of the Almighty, reflects and refracts the various colours displayed in creation. ”

“ If the rain has been gentle, nature smiles serenely, and the leaves and flowers refreshed appear clothed with new beauty: if the storm has raged violently, the appearance of the rainbow is a pledge that the war of the elements has ceased, and that God smiles again upon the earth. ”

“ They stood for days, nay, for weeks, without obscuring the pure sky; and even the transient storms refreshed the country, and gave lustre to the green, which again glistened in the sunshine before it could become dry. The double rainbow, the two-coloured borders of a dark gray and nearly black streak in the sky, were nobler, more highly coloured, more decided, but also more transient, than I had ever observed. ”

“ Slowly, but somehow inexorably, like the laws of life itself, and somewhere at a prodigious height above the earth, the three outer ends of the red and the green and the blue spread out and flared back upon themselves and one another, until their combined brilliance bridged a great rainbow across the sky. ”

“ Its ribs of gorgeous light spread themselves from one side of heaven to the other and were joined together by webs of a thousand colours, of such stuff as the rainbow, only a hundred times more beautiful. The reflection from these rainbow webs lay upon the earth, divided by and sometimes mingled with those from the bars of light, and made it glorious.
“All these things I saw from an eminence on which I stood, that rose between the rivers at the head of the plain. ”

“ Are blown clear bands of color through the sky,
That swirl and sweep and meet, to break and foam
Like rainbow veils upon a bubble's dome.
Yours are the songs that burst about my ears,
Or blow away as many-colored spheres.
You are the star that made the skies all bright,
Yet tore itself away in flaming flight;
You are the tree that suddenly awoke ”

“ Greens and blues, purples and whites, melt into one another, fade, and come again, and change with the changing sun. Sometimes they are as richly diaphanous as a precious stone, and glow from within with a deep, inexplicable light. Sometimes the white intricacies of dropping foam become opaque and creamy. And always there are the rainbows. If you come suddenly upon the Falls from above, a great double rainbow, very vivid, spanning the extent of spray from top to bottom, is the first thing you see. ”

“ As there can be no rainbow, when the heavens are covered with clouds, because the sun-beams are then precluded from falling upon the rain-drops opposite to the eye of the spectator, the rainbow is a mark of gentle or partial showers. ”

“ The multitude of white-robed ones that worship before the throne are those who have come out “of great tribulation,” they are those who have “overcome through the blood of the Lamb,” therefore it is fitting that the one choicest treasure saved from the natural world in which they fought their battles, and won their victories, should be the rainbow, the richly colored symbol of God’s faithfulness and mercy. What emotions thrill our souls in this world when we look upon the rainbow! ”

“ I like the reds and blues of the other flowers, too. They seem brighter than ever to-day. Sometimes I sit all day and look at them.”
[143]
“Oh! we have a rainbow this afternoon. It always looks to me like a great garden of flowers stretched in bands across the sky. I like to think that its yellow and red and blue are made up of flowers like these in our garden here.”
“Do you see that colour next to the green? I love it; it is so dark and deep. Many times I have wished we might have a flower on earth just like it.” ”

“ 'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. ”

“ Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky. ”

“ If we skowl and growl we're making a huming thunder-storm, but just as soon as the smile comes out thats the rainbow and shows the sun is shining, 'cause there is never a rainbow without the sun is in the clouds behind it. ”

“ The child realizes that the orb of day shines, but remains wholly in the dark as to the processes of its rays; why it inspires animals and vegetation with life and growth, and produces the prismatic colors of the rainbow. ”

“ But of all the beautiful effects of the refraction of light, the Rainbow (fig. 9) is the most glorious, it has been celebrated in all ages for its transient beauty. It is only seen when rain is falling in front of a brightly illuminated cloud, the sun being behind the spectator; it is a reflection of the sun by the cloud transmitted through millions of drops of rain, each of which acts as a prism, and produces rings of colour ”

“ There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade. ”

“ A rainbow is produced by the decomposition of the white light of the sun when it passes into the rain-drops, then reflecting from their inside face; or when solar light passes into drops of water under a certain angle. ”

“ If you mean that the proximity of one colour should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colours of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every colour of that bow, as is demonstrated in its place [1] . ”

“ That a Rainbow is not a natural effect of a natural Cause, but a divine Mystery in its original; and that it has no matter, but yet is in a place, and has its colours immediately in a place, but in the air mediately, and that it is of the nature of Light. ”

“ These rays of light are of the same colors that we see in the rainbow. It takes all of them mixed together to make the clear white light which we call sunlight, and without which nothing could live or grow. ”

“ Rainbow.—In Shoshoni, the rainbow is a beautiful serpent that abrades the firmament of ice to give us snow and rain. In Norse, the rainbow is the bridge Bifrost spanning the space between heaven and earth. In the Iliad, the rainbow is the goddess Iris, the messenger of the King of Olympus. In Hebrew, the rainbow is the witness to a covenant. In science, the rainbow is an analysis of white light into its constituent colors by the refraction of raindrops.
Falling stars.—In Ute, falling stars are the excrements of dirty little star-gods. ”

“ The rainbow, that wonderfully beautiful bow of prismatic tints, which sometimes throws its ethereal arch across the heavens for a brief while, is caused by the reflection of the sun’s rays shining upon drops of rain, the colours being arranged in definite order; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The lunar rainbow, which occasionally forms at night when the moon shines, is not of frequent occurrence, but very beautiful when it does deign to show itself. ”

“ And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow. ”

“ Others think that the rainbow is caused by the rays of the sun becoming infused into some dense cloud, and pouring into it a liquid light, which, as it can find no exit, falls back upon itself, and shines the more brilliantly because of a kind of attrition; and receives those hues which are most akin to white from the sun above ”

“ There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
⁠To me did seem
⁠Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
⁠Turn wheresoe'er I may,
⁠By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
⁠The Rainbow comes and goes,
⁠And lovely is the Rose,
⁠The Moon doth with delight
⁠Look round her when the heavens are bare;
⁠Waters on a starry night
⁠Are beautiful and fair;
⁠The sunshine is a glorious birth;
⁠But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. ”

“ Is it because the earth she loves so well, still rising nearer, seems to hover close above the border of the second world, sweet with the flowers of spring, while nightingales lie brooding, with those burning hearts of theirs pressed on the grasses and the meadow blooms,—the stormy skies all brightening into rainbows? ”

“ The sun, now high over head, shot down his flaming arrows, transforming into living rainbows the clusters of gems between the crevices of the golden piles—emeralds as green as the deep sea when it takes that hue ”

“ in the dark east, expanded high,
The rainbow brightens to the setting sun! ”

“ That is a sweeping promise that is literally fulfilled in nature. All clouds carry rainbows. Most of them are never seen by us because we lack the necessary keenness of vision, or the proper point of view to behold their woven colors; many are only partially seen because something intervenes and prevents a perfect intersection of heavenly sunlight with our earth-born mists; many are within the vision of all observing men; but, whether we see it or not, for every cloud there is a scarf of red and orange and yellow and green and blue and scarlet and purple. ”

“ AFTER a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow. ”

“ "Don't despair, whatever happens, for behind the clouds is always the Rainbow!" ”

“ Fluttering butterflies, darting dragon-flies hovered or shot hither and thither about our heads, a cloud of colours and flashes, now descending upon us like a snow-storm of rainbow flakes, now rising into the humid air like a rolling vapour of embodied odours. ”