Love’s Portrait
Out of the day—glare, out of all uproar,
Hurrying in ways disquieted, bring me
To silence, and earth’s ancient peace restore,
That with profounder vision I may see.
In dew—baptizing dimness let me lose
Tired thoughts; dispeople the world—haunted mind,
With burning of interior fire refined;
Cleanse all my sense: then, Love, mine eyes unclose.
Let it be dawn, and such low light increase,
As when from darkness pure the hills emerge;
And solemn foliage trembles through its peace
As with an ecstasy; and round the verge
Of solitary coppices cold flowers
Freshen upon their clustered stalks; and where
Wafts of wild odour sweeten the blue air,
Drenched mosses dimly sparkle on old towers.
So, for my spirit, let the light be slow
And tender as among those dawning trees,
That on this vision of my heart may grow
The beloved form by delicate degrees,
The desired form that Earth was waiting for,
Her last completion and felicity,
Who through the dewy hush comes, and for me
Sings a new meaning into all Time’s lore.
Just—dinted temples, cheek and brow and hair—
Ah, never curve that wind breathed over snow
Could match what the divine hand moulded there,
Or in her lips, where life’s own colours glow,
Or in the throat, the sweet well of her speech;
Yet all forgotten, when those eyelids raise
The beam of eyes that hold me in their gaze
Clear with a tenderness no words can reach.
Some silken shred, whose fair embroidery throbbed
Once on a queen’s young breast; a mirror dimmed
That has held how much beauty, and all robbed!
One bright tress from a head that poets hymned;
A rent flag that warm blood was spent for: sighs,
Faith, love, have made these fragrant, and sweet pain
Quickens its pangs upon our pulse again,
Charmed at a touch out of old histories.
But thou, whence com’st thou, bringing in thy face
More than all these are charged with? Not faint myrrh
Of embalmed bliss, dead passion’s written trace,
Half—faded; but triumphant and astir
Life tinges the cheek’s change and the lips’ red.
Thy deep compassions, thy long hopes and fears,
Thy joys, thine indignations, and thy tears,
To enrich these, what stormy hearts have bled!
For thine unknown sake, how has life’s dear breath
Been cherished past despair: how, lifted fierce
In exultation, has love smiled at death,
For one hope hazarding the universe!
What wisdom has been spelled from sorrow’s book,
What anguish in the patient will immured,
What bliss made perfect, what delight abjured,
That in these eyes thine eyes at last might look!
O mystery! out of ravin, strife, and wrong,
Thou comest, Time’s last sweetness in the flower,
Life’s hope and want, my never—ended song!
Futurity is folded in this hour
With all fruition; joy, and loss and smart;
And death, and birth; the wooed, the feared, the unknown;
And there our lives, mid earth’s vast undertone,
Are beatings of one deep and mighty heart.
