THE CHARMED PICTURE.
“Oh! that those lips had language!—Life hath pass'd
With me but roughly since I saw thee last.”
Cowper.
Thine eyes are charm'd—thine earnest eyes—
Thou image of the dead!
A spell within their sweetness lies,
A virtue thence is shed.
Oft in their meek blue light enshrined,
A blessing seems to be,
And sometimes there my wayward mind
A still reproach can see:
And sometimes pity—soft and deep,
And quivering through a tear;
Even as if love in heaven could weep,
For grief left drooping here.
And oh, my spirit needs that balm!
Needs it 'midst fitful mirth!
And in the night-hour's haunted calm,
And by the lonely hearth.
Look on me thus, when hollow praise
Hath made the weary pine
For one true tone of other days,
One glance of love like thine!
Look on me thus, when sudden glee
Bears my quick heart along,
On wings that struggle to be free,
As bursts of skylark song.
In vain, in vain!—too soon are felt
The wounds they cannot flee;
Better in childlike tears to melt,
Pouring my soul on thee!
Sweet face, that o'er my childhood shone,
Whence is thy power of change,
Thus ever shadowing back my own,
The rapid and the strange?
Whence are they charm'd—those earnest eyes?
—I know the mystery well!
In mine own trembling bosom lies
The spirit of the spell!
Of Memory, Conscience, Love, 'tis born—
Oh! change no longer, thou!
For ever be the blessing worn
On thy pure thoughtful brow!
