Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. I do set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Every soul is a melody which needs renewing.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. But the poet will follow the rainbow still, And his brother will follow the plow. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. God gave Noah the rainbow sign. I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth.