Poems (Welby)/Lines Written on a Miniature
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,
Caught from the moving form, and breathing face,
Beneath his touch, like soft enchantment stole,
And on the ivory smiled the living soul!
Flushed with delight, in that triumphant hour,
His heart expanded like an opening flower;
His hopes on airy wings were lightly raised,
And all his soul exulted as he gazed.
But ah! such thrilling joys are known to few,
They are the painter's meed, the poet's due.
And O! how sweet the bliss such joys impart,
Although their very raptures break the heart!
What, though the poet, bending o'er his lyre,
Like his own songs, in sweetness may expire!
Who would not, swan-like, waste his sweetest breath,
To taste such rapture—die so sweet a death?
Flushed, faint, and trembling at his own success,
Such joys as these, the lonely painter bless.
As some fair face his silent toil repays,
And bursts in beauty on his raptured gaze,
His thoughts, too sweet for mortal hearts to share,
Float up to heaven, and find an echo there,
While on his heart descends immortal fire,
And his own soul becomes his funeral pyre.
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,
Caught from the moving form, and breathing face,
Beneath his touch, like soft enchantment stole,
And on the ivory smiled the living soul!
Flushed with delight, in that triumphant hour,
His heart expanded like an opening flower;
His hopes on airy wings were lightly raised,
And all his soul exulted as he gazed.
But ah! such thrilling joys are known to few,
They are the painter's meed, the poet's due.
And O! how sweet the bliss such joys impart,
Although their very raptures break the heart!
What, though the poet, bending o'er his lyre,
Like his own songs, in sweetness may expire!
Who would not, swan-like, waste his sweetest breath,
To taste such rapture—die so sweet a death?
Flushed, faint, and trembling at his own success,
Such joys as these, the lonely painter bless.
As some fair face his silent toil repays,
And bursts in beauty on his raptured gaze,
His thoughts, too sweet for mortal hearts to share,
Float up to heaven, and find an echo there,
While on his heart descends immortal fire,
And his own soul becomes his funeral pyre.