 | The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill |  |
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THE PICTURE OF THE WORLD
One morning of a summer's day,
Upon a painter's easel lay
The picture of a child at play:
A form of laughing life and grace,
And finished all except the place
Left empty for the untouched face.
In nodding violets, half asleep,
The dancing feet were ankle deep:
One rounded arm was heaping up
With clover-bloom and buttercup;
The other tossed a blossom high
To lure a wandering butterfly.
'T was easy to imagine there
In that round frame of rippling hair
The wanting face, all bright and fair.
Upon a painter's easel lay
The picture of a child at play:
A form of laughing life and grace,
And finished all except the place
Left empty for the untouched face.
In nodding violets, half asleep,
The dancing feet were ankle deep:
One rounded arm was heaping up
With clover-bloom and buttercup;
The other tossed a blossom high
To lure a wandering butterfly.
'T was easy to imagine there
In that round frame of rippling hair
The wanting face, all bright and fair.
A sadder artist came that day,
Looked at the picture where it lay,
And, sitting in the painter's place,
He painted in the missing face.
From his own heart the lines he took—
Lo! what a wan and woeful look!
Under the mocking wreath of flowers,
A brow worn old with weary hours:
A face, once seen, one still must see;
Wise, awful-eyed solemnity,
Lips long ago too tired to hide
The torture-lines where love had died;
The look of a despair too late,
Too dead even to be desperate;
A face for which so far away
The struggle and the protest lay,
No memory of it more could stay.
Repulsed and reckless, withered, wild,
It stared above the dancing child.
Looked at the picture where it lay,
And, sitting in the painter's place,
He painted in the missing face.
From his own heart the lines he took—
Lo! what a wan and woeful look!
Under the mocking wreath of flowers,
A brow worn old with weary hours:
158
Wise, awful-eyed solemnity,
Lips long ago too tired to hide
The torture-lines where love had died;
The look of a despair too late,
Too dead even to be desperate;
A face for which so far away
The struggle and the protest lay,
No memory of it more could stay.
Repulsed and reckless, withered, wild,
It stared above the dancing child.
At night a musing poet came
And, shuddering, wrote beneath its name.
And, shuddering, wrote beneath its name.
| The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill | |