C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Riddles

Translation of Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I
THE RAINBOW

FROM pearls her lofty bridge she weaves,

A gray sea arching proudly over;

A moment’s toil the work achieves,

And on the height behold her hover!

Beneath that arch securely go

The tallest barks that ride the seas;

No burthen e’er the bridge may know,

And as thou seek’st to near—it flees!

First with the floods it came, to fade

As rolled the waters from the land;

Say where that wondrous arch is made,

And whose the artist’s plastic hand?

II
THE MOON AND STARS

O’ER a spacious pasture go

Sheep in thousands, silver-white;

As to-day we see them, so

In the oldest grandsire’s sight.

They drink, never waxing old,

Life from an unfailing brook;

There’s a shepherd to their fold,

With a silver-hornèd crook.

From a gate of gold let out,

Night by night he counts them over;

Wide the field they rove about,

Never hath he lost a rover.

True the Dog that helps to lead them,

One gay Ram in front we see:

What the flock, and who doth heed them,

Sheep and shepherd,—tell to me?