Poems (Allen)/An Old Portrait
HIS time-worn canvas bears a pictured face, Which, once beheld, comes back to thought again,—Passionate, proud, yet touched with tender grace, And marked with lines which tell of hidden pain.
AN OLD PORTRAIT.
HIS time-worn canvas bears a pictured face, Which, once beheld, comes back to thought again,—Passionate, proud, yet touched with tender grace, And marked with lines which tell of hidden pain. O noble face! in whose compelling eyes There lurks a power which stays me on my way, Which thrills me always with a new surprise, And holds me gazing half the livelong day,—
Strange eyes, whose earthly task of smiles and tears Was finished long ago, and sealed in night; Eyes which were closed in death a hundred years Before mine own had opened to the light,—
Why do you haunt me so? Some bitter days, When all the rose-tints vanish from my sky, And I go stumbling down life's darkest ways, I can but think perhaps the reason why
My life has been so barren and forlorn, So full of tears and losses, is that Fate Made some unkind mistake, and I was born An age too early or an age too late.
And when I read in these strange, wistful eyes The yearning lack of something which I know They never found in life, I think with sighs A century too late—ah, more's the woe!
Perhaps I am the one for whom he sought, Walking the earth's dry places o'er and o'er, Calling for her, alas! who answered not, And, never finding, lacked forevermore!
Perhaps I might have lived a nobler life, If but these marvellous eyes had held me dear; Perhaps I might have soothed the proud soul's strife, Outlooking from their darkness deep and clear;—
Perhaps—who knows? O sad and tender eyes, Look not upon me so reproachfully; Since bitterly my soul forever cries, "O cruel Love, that did not wait for me!"