Two Portraits
You say, as one who shapes a life,
That you will never be a wife,
And, laughing lightly, ask my aid
To paint your future as a maid.
This is the portrait; and I take
The softest colors for your sake:
The springtime of your soul is dead,
And forty years have bent your head;
The lines are firmer round your mouth,
But still its smile is like the South.
Your eyes, grown deeper, are not sad,
Yet never more than gravely glad;
And the old charm still lurks within
The cloven dimple of your chin.
Some share, perhaps, of youthful gloss
Your cheek hath shed; but still across
The delicate ear are folded down
Those silken locks of chestnut brown;
Though here and there a thread of gray
Steals through them like a lunar ray.
One might suppose your life had passed
Unvexed by any troubling blast;
And such -- for all that I foreknow --
May be the truth! The deeper woe!
A loveless heart is seldom stirred;
And sorrow shuns the mateless bird;
But ah! through cares alone we reach
The happiness which mocketh speech;
In the white courts beyond the stars
The noblest brow is seamed with scars;
And they on earth who've wept the most
Sit highest of the heavenly host.
Grant that your maiden life hath sped
In music o'er a golden bed,
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poem by Henry Timrod
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