The Portrait (Whitman)

by Sarah Helen Whitman

For works with similar titles, see The Portrait.

After long years I raised the folds concealing
  That face, magnetic as the morning's beam
While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing
  Like Memnon wakening from his marble dream.

Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor,
  The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume;
The sweet, imperious mouth, whose haughty valor
  Defied all portents of impending doom.

Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision
  That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture born;
Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian,
  And far, sweet dreams of "fairly lands forlorn."

Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow
  Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps,
Lit by that prescience of a heavenly morrow
  Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps.

Oft has that pale, poetic presence haunted
  My lonely musings at the twilight hour,
Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted,
  With marvel and with mystery and with power.

Oft have I heard the sullen sea-wind moaning
  Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore,
Or listening to the Autumn winds intoning
  The wild, sweet legend of the lost Lenore;

Oft in some ashen evening of October,
  Have stood entranced beside a mouldering tomb
Hard by that visionary lake of Auber,
  Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume;

Oft in chill, star-lit nights have heard the chiming
  Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air,
And felt their molten-golden music timing
  To the heart's pulses, answering unaware.

Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow
  Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream!
Sleep, wayward heart! till on some cool, bright morrow
  Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam.

Though cloud and sorrow rest upon thy story,
  And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall,
Time, as a birthright, shall restore the glory,
  And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall.