Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I could not think what gave her that fine beauty,
Until I saw her dead; for in her face
There was no line a sculptor would have prized:
And yet methought all heaven was in that face!

I could not look into it and retain
A single hold of earth: and when I gazed
Within her eyes they drank out all my soul,
And left me as a statue, with the gleam
Of adoration in its stony front.

But when I saw her dead upon her bier,
I turn'd with loathing, and I could have rush'd
Down from this upper earth into my grave,
To be where she was not. Ill-favour'd thing!
O what a dream I've had that she was fair!
Either it was a dream, or that stretch'd form
Held nothing of the beauty I adored.—
That form was all one settled ashy hue;
No colour came and went, no wreathing thought
Moved o'er its pale pinch'd lips. I stole one look
Into its staring eyes;—they knew not me,
Nor spoke one thought—those eyes that had so oft
Enfolded all my soul within their lids.
I touch'd its cold cheek—God! my blood shrank back,
And stopp'd its pulses like a frozen brook.
There was no trace of that fine something there
That flow'd in all the motions of her being.

If that still form was hers, it was not her:
For through her frame there ran a wondrous speech
E'en when she spoke no word. External things
Leapt eagerly into her centring breast,
And came again all dripping with the dew
Of her new thought. And when she spoke, it seem'd

The utterance of a company of minds,
That even in condemnation gives support
To that which is condemn'd. Most erring souls,
When they approach'd her, could not hold their sins,
But, child-like, blabb'd them out, and came away
Ennobled and amazed to find what good
Sprang up when she took off their loads of sin.

Yet had she no great gift that one could see.
I thought it was her beauty that I loved,
And sat for whole hours pondering it. I saw
Two silver fountains welling in her eyes—
A constant flowing up of crystal thought
That kept them ever clear, though trouble stirr'd.
A dreamy summer day was in her hair;
And fancies chased each other o'er her face,
Like skiey shadows o'er a field of grain.
And when I touch'd her hand, O then methought
I stood before the east at early dawn,
And saw the crowding beauty of the morn—
Young day still in its cradle of the sea
Rocking and dreaming—streaks of fringy light
That moved like curtains—and the lonely star,
Like a young mother watching the baby day,
With half her love on it, half on her lord
Coming from his far voyage in the east.
A poem fill'd her veins, and when she moved,
Listen'd, or read, or lifted up her eyes,
It lived along the surface of her being,
In wavy lines of beauty.

But she died—
Ay, even in the midst of all this beauty!
Whate'er it was that went—life, spirit, soul—
It took all with it, left not one fair shred.
The lines that hemm'd her living, hemm'd her dead,
And still I looked for beauty, but could find
Only lost beauty's secret in dead lines.