Landon in The Literary Gazette 1824/Raphael Showing his Mistress her Portrait
Literary Gazette, 24th April, 1824, Page 268
ORIGINAL POETRY.
Sorely he imaged this from his own heart?
He had been wandering with some one he loved—
Some dark-eyed beauty—when the sunset threw
In vain its crimson o'er a cheek, which blush
(That gentle answer to a lover's look)
Had died already. Parted from her side,
He thought upon her face, and painted this,
Bidding another's love breathe of his own.
I've thought upon thy brow when Night
Threw o'er my pallet her summer moonlight,
And I have looked on the midnight sky
To catch the depth and light of thy eye ;
I painted from these and from memory,
For I could not paint when I looked on thee.
I saw thee one day—the bath had shed
Over thy cheek that loveliest red
I never saw matched by rosebud or rose,
By morning's rise, or by evening's close:
Around thy brow was a turban rolled,
The hair was veiled by its graceful fold,
Save one or two rich curls that fell,
The beauty of the rest to tell;
Thy neck and rounded arms were bare,
Marble statue was never so fair;
Thy zone was unbound, but one small white hand
Held thy robe while thy dark eye scanned
How it floated round in the glass beside,
With youth and woman and beauty's pride.
Now this be thy mirror—Is thine eye bright?
Curls that lip, blooms that cheek aright?
Now this be thy mirror, and it shall be
A glass, my beauty! worthy of thee—
A glass, the emblem of my heart,
From which thy image will not depart.
Perish the other works, for whose fame
I have wasted the light and oil of life's flame—
Let not one single fragment be
Of what they say is immortality.
If Time will but spare this loveliest trace
Of thy fairy form and thy radiant face,
Just leave this record of my heart
To tell how lovely and loved thou art!