A child, I chased the rainbow once, and wept
Because I could not reach its glorious ray.
In life's decline I stood amid the spray
Where all Zambesi down its gorges leapt;
And as into the cloud I careless stept,
The rainbow forward moving came my way.
With round completed on the gra** it lay.
And o'er my feet the rosy radiance crept.
So do we chase our fancies, and despair
At length of joys that made our youth so sweet;
Till, some day, God's ideal, now unsought,
Bodies itself in some diviner air,
And filling with its radiance all our thought,
Completes its circle at our very feet.