midday May
Her head bent low ; I heard a soft sobbing -- I turned away my gaze , lorn enough in my own heart , God knew ! The Three Silent Ones The arch was closer -- and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and aught else . For this was no rainbow , no thing born of light and mist , no Bifrost Bridge of myth -- no ! It was a flying arch of stone , stained with flares of Tyrian purples , of royal scarlets , of blues dark as the Gulf Stream 's ribbon , sapphires soft as midday May skies , splashes of chromes and greens -- a palette of giantry , a bridge of wizardry ; a hundred , nay , a thousand , times greater than that of Utah which the Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship , as well they may , as a god , and which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock . It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low arc over the sea 's crimson breast , as though in some ancient paroxysm of earth it had been hurled molten , crystallizing into that stupendous span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it . Closer we came and closer , while I watched spellbound ; now we were at its head , and the litter-bearers swept upon it . All of five hundred feet wide it was , surface smooth as a city road , sides low walled , curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of the plastic rock had curled .