OFT round my hall of portraiture I gaze, By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly, The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden. Ah, never master that drew mortal breath Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! Thou paintest that which struggled here below Half understood, or understood for woe, And with a sweet forewarning Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CEMETERY BY THE SEA by PAUL VALERY THE MIDNIGHT SKATERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN APOLLO by THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS TO A CHILD DURING SICKNESS by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT A LEGEND OF BREGENZ by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER: AUGUST by EDMUND SPENSER TO A HIGHLAND GIRL; AT INVERSNAID, UPON LOCH LOMOND by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE POET'S SOLILOQUY by E. M. AVERILL THE BLACK MOUSQUETAIRE; A LEGEND OF FRANCE by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |