The Dream and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Dream and Other Poems

By the Hon'ble Mrs Norton

Norton, Caroline Sheridan (1808-1877)

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MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

SONNETS.

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284

SONNET II. RAPHAEL.

Bless'd wert thou, whom Death, and not Decay,
Bore from the world on swift and shadowy wings,
Ere age or weakness dimm'd one brilliant ray
Of thy rapt spirit's high imaginings!
While yet thy heart was full of fervid love,
And thou wert haunted by resistless dreams
Of all in earth beneath, or Heaven above,
On which the light of beauty richest gleams,—
Dead, but not deathlike, wert thou borne along;
Silent and cold, oh thou that didst combine
Sculpture, and painting, and the gift of song;
While on thy brow, and on that work divine
Borne with thee, glow'd from thine Italian sky
A light whose glory spoke of immortality!

The celebrated picture of the Transfiguration (at which Raphael is said to have worked the evening before his death) was borne at the bier-head in the procession of his funeral.