 | Poetical Works of Robert Bridges excluding the eight dramas |  |
13
THE PORTRAIT OF A GRANDFATHER
With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak,
Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays,
One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek:
It is of him whom I, remembering my young days,
Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore,
Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze,
The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.
Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays,
One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek:
It is of him whom I, remembering my young days,
Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore,
Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze,
The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.
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O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing,
O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore,
The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going,
How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek
The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing,
Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.
O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore,
The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going,
How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek
The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing,
Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.
And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly
A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak,
In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly,
—Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,—
Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly,
‘Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!’
A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak,
In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly,
—Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,—
Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly,
‘Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!’
[1880.]
| Poetical Works of Robert Bridges excluding the eight dramas | |