LINES WRITTEN ON A MINIATURE.
This is the pictured likeness of my love!
How true to life! it seems to breathe and move!
Fire, love, and sweetness o'er each feature melt,
The face expressing all the spirit felt!
Here, while I gaze within those large dark eyes,
I almost see the living spirit rise;
While lights and shadows, all harmonious, glow,
And heavenly radiance settles on the brow.
And then, that mouth! how tranquil its repose!
Sleeping in fragrance like a slumbering rose,
It seems the ruby gate of love and bliss,
Just formed to murmur sighs, to smile, and kiss.
To what a lofty height can art arrive!
This glorious face, though lifeless, seems alive;
The lifted lash, the shining chestnut hair,
Like nature, trembling on the ambient air,
When o'er his task the painter sat apart,
On this loved face exhausting all his art,
What were his thoughts, when, in the magic strife,
He saw each feature struggling into life,
When every kindling glance, and manly grace,
How true to life! it seems to breathe and move!
Fire, love, and sweetness o'er each feature melt,
The face expressing all the spirit felt!
Here, while I gaze within those large dark eyes,
I almost see the living spirit rise;
While lights and shadows, all harmonious, glow,
And heavenly radiance settles on the brow.
And then, that mouth! how tranquil its repose!
Sleeping in fragrance like a slumbering rose,
It seems the ruby gate of love and bliss,
Just formed to murmur sighs, to smile, and kiss.
To what a lofty height can art arrive!
This glorious face, though lifeless, seems alive;
The lifted lash, the shining chestnut hair,
Like nature, trembling on the ambient air,
When o'er his task the painter sat apart,
On this loved face exhausting all his art,
What were his thoughts, when, in the magic strife,
He saw each feature struggling into life,
When every kindling glance, and manly grace,
