Poems (Hooper)/On a Portrait of Heine

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

ON A PORTRAIT OF HEINE.

Behold! the limner's magic art
 In few yet wondrous lines doth tell
How beautiful, how sad, how sweet
 The face of him who sang so well!

The Poet, not the Infidel,
 Looks from those features calm and fair!
No skeptic sneer their beauty mars,
 For Death is near and Thought is there.

Thus thou didst look—thus hadst thou sung,
 What immortality were thine!
We ne'er had prayed then, "God forgive,
 And World forget, each mocking line!"

Forgive, O God—forget, O World,
 What blasphemy he could create!
Let but that sweet sad face recall
 How sweet his song, how sad his fate!