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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409129" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Two Portraits</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">You say, as one who shapes a life,<br>That you will never be a wife,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, laughing lightly, ask my aid<br>To paint your future as a maid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the portrait; and I take<br>The softest colors for your sake:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The springtime of your soul is dead,<br>And forty years have bent your head;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The lines are firmer round your mouth,<br>But still its smile is like the South.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your eyes, grown deeper, are not sad,<br>Yet never more than gravely glad;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the old charm still lurks within<br>The cloven dimple of your chin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some share, perhaps, of youthful gloss<br>Your cheek hath shed; but still across</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The delicate ear are folded down<br>Those silken locks of chestnut brown;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though here and there a thread of gray<br>Steals through them like a lunar ray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One might suppose your life had passed<br>Unvexed by any troubling blast;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And such -- for all that I foreknow --<br>May be the truth! The deeper woe!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A loveless heart is seldom stirred;<br>And sorrow shuns the mateless bird;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But ah! through cares alone we reach<br>The happiness which mocketh speech;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the white courts beyond the stars<br>The noblest brow is seamed with scars;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And they on earth who've wept the most<br>Sit highest of the heavenly host.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Grant that your maiden life hath sped<br>In music o'er a golden bed,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With rocks, and winds, and storms at truce,<br>And not without a noble use;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet are you happy? In your air<br>I see a nameless want appear,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And a faint shadow on your cheek<br>Tells what the lips refuse to speak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You have had all a maid could hope<br>In the most cloudless horoscope:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The strength that cometh from above;<br>A Christian mother's holy love;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And always at your soul's demand<br>A brother's, sister's heart and hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Small need your heart hath had to roam<br>Beyond the circle of your home;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet upon your wish attends<br>A loving throng of genial friends.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What, in a lot so sweet as this,<br>Is wanting to complete your bliss?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And to what secret shall I trace<br>The clouds that sometimes cross your face,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that sad look which now and then<br>Comes, disappears, and comes again,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And dies reluctantly away<br>In those clear eyes of azure gray?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At best, and after all, the place<br>You fill with such a serious grace,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hath much to try a woman's heart,<br>And you but play a painful part.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The world around, with little ruth,<br>Still laughs at maids who have not youth,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, right or wrong, the old maid rests<br>The victim of its paltry jests,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still is doomed to meet and bear<br>Its pitying smile or furtive sneer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are indeed but petty things,<br>And yet they touch some hearts like stings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I acquit you of the shame<br>Of being unresisting game;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For you are of such tempered clay<br>As turns far stronger shafts away,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all that foes or fools could guide<br>Would only curl that lip of pride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How then, O weary one! explain<br>The sources of that hidden pain?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! you have divined at length<br>How little you have used your strength,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which, with who knows what human good,<br>Lies buried in that maidenhood,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where, as amid a field of flowers,<br>You have but played with April showers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! we would wish the world less fair,<br>If Spring alone adorned the year,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Autumn came not with its fruit,<br>And Autumn hymns were ever mute.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So I remark without surprise<br>That, as the unvarying season flies,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From day to night and night to day,<br>You sicken of your endless May.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In this poor life we may not cross<br>One virtuous instinct without loss,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the soul grows not to its height<br>Till love calls forth its utmost might.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not blind to all you might have been,<br>And with some consciousness of sin --</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Because with love you sometimes played,<br>And choice, not fate, hath kept you maid --</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You feel that you must pass from earth<br>But half-acquainted with its worth,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that within your heart are deeps<br>In which a nobler woman sleeps;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That not the maiden, but the wife<br>Grasps the whole lesson of a life,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While such as you but sit and dream<br>Along the surface of its stream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And doubtless sometimes, all unsought,<br>There comes upon your hour of thought,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Despite the struggles of your will,<br>A sense of something absent still;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then you cannot help but yearn<br>To love and be beloved in turn,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As they are loved, and love, who live<br>As love were all that life could give;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And in a transient clasp or kiss<br>Crowd an eternity of bliss;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They who of every mortal joy<br>Taste always twice, nor feel them cloy,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or, if woes come, in Sorrow's hour<br>Are strengthened by a double power.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here ends my feeble sketch of what<br>Might, but will never be your lot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I foresee how oft these rhymes<br>Shall make you smile in after-times.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If I have read your nature right,<br>It only waits a spark of light;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when that comes, as come it must,<br>It will not fall on arid dust,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor yet on that which breaks to flame<br>In the first blush of maiden shame;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But on a heart which, even at rest,<br>Is warmer than an April nest,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where, settling soft, that spark shall creep<br>About as gently as a sleep;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still stealing on with pace so slow<br>Yourself will scarcely feel the glow,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Till after many and many a day,<br>Although no gleam its course betray,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It shall attain the inmost shrine,<br>And wrap it in a fire divine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I know not when or whence indeed<br>Shall fall and burst the burning seed,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But oh! once kindled, it will blaze,<br>I know, forever! By its rays</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You will perceive, with subtler eyes,<br>The meaning in the earth and skies,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which, with their animated chain<br>Of grass and flowers, and sun and rain,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of green below, and blue above,<br>Are but a type of married love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You will perceive that in the breast<br>The germs of many virtues rest,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which, ere they feel a lover's breath,<br>Lie in a temporary death;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And till the heart is wooed and won<br>It is an earth without a sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now, stand forth as sweet as life!<br>And let me paint you as a wife.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I note some changes in your face,<br>And in your mien a graver grace;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet the calm forehead lightly bears<br>Its weight of twice a score of years;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that one love which on this earth<br>Can wake the heart to all its worth,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And to their height can lift and bind<br>The powers of soul, and sense, and mind,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hath not allowed a charm to fade --<br>And the wife's lovelier than the maid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An air of still, though bright repose<br>Tells that a tender hand bestows</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All that a generous manhood may<br>To make your life one bridal day,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While the kind eyes betray no less,<br>In their blue depths of tenderness,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That you have learned the truths which lie<br>Behind that holy mystery,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which, with its blisses and its woes,<br>Nor man nor maiden ever knows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If now, as to the eyes of one<br>Whose glance not even thought can shun,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your soul lay open to my view,<br>I, looking all its nature through,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Could see no incompleted part,<br>For the whole woman warms your heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I cannot tell how many dead<br>You number in the cycles fled,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And you but look the more serene<br>For all the griefs you may have seen,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As you had gathered from the dust<br>The flowers of Peace, and Hope, and Trust.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your smile is even sweeter now<br>Than when it lit your maiden brow,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that which wakes this gentler charm<br>Coos at this moment on your arm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your voice was always soft in youth,<br>And had the very sound of truth,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But never were its tones so mild<br>Until you blessed your earliest child;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when to soothe some little wrong<br>It melts into a mother's song,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The same strange sweetness which in years<br>Long vanished filled the eyes with tears,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And (even when mirthful) gave always<br>A pathos to your girlish lays,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Falls, with perchance a deeper thrill,<br>Upon the breathless listener still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I cannot guess in what fair spot<br>The chance of Time hath fixed your lot,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor can I name what manly breast<br>Gives to that head a welcome rest;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I cannot tell if partial Fate<br>Hath made you poor, or rich, or great;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But oh! whatever be your place,<br>I never saw a form or face</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To which more plainly hath been lent<br>The blessing of a full content!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Timrod">Henry Timrod</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409129" data-title="Two Portraits de Henry Timrod" data-description="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 fort..."></div>
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