Sunday, 4 October 2015

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 90 Rainbow


RAINBOW

This poem was written to include younger readers and make an imaginative version of the "rainbow colours". Science speaks of colour in purely quantitative terms like wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. The qualities of the experience of colour are simply regarded as brain biology or subjective psychology. However, there is, I think, something in the varied qualities of different colours that is not wholly subjective and does not fit into these categories. I believe Goethe explored this dimension in his colour theory. 





photo Scrivener



RAINBOW



Red is the western setting sun

That rays through spreading mist and haze,

Descending when the day is done,

With its fine face of flame ablaze.



But golden-orange at the dawn,

It brings its world-beholding light,

Bestowing glowing rays to warm

And waken all the world from night.



It makes the dandelions all gleam

Bright yellow in the fields. They glow,

In every streaming, sunny beam,

Like little suns on earth below.



It lights up all the forest leaves

That cluster with their sparkling greens,

And rustle in the passing breeze

Where vast trees cover far-off scenes.



And it illumines all the sky,

The beautiful, light-dreaming blue,

Where distant eagles soar on high,

On heaven's boundless, soothing view.



And it shines on the indigo,

Wide sea, illuminating views

Where endless waves that foam and flow

Move over ocean's broad, dark blues.



And when the shining sun has set,

And final light dies on dusk's sky,

There shines a deepening, fine violet,

As gleaming stars appear on high.



Now when the rain's last passing showers

Are lit by westward sun's bright glow,

They throw an arch of misty powers

In bands of rainbow colour flow-



Red, orange, yellow, green and blue,

And indigo and violet too-

Life's feeling sheen, the shining bow,

The shimmer of the soul aglow.




No comments:

Post a Comment