University of Virginia Library

ON A PORTRAIT.

When a Poet knew himself, once on a time,
And his joy of life overflow'd into rhyme,
He had supple joints and curly dark hair;
Folk see him now with a pate half bare,
Some grizzled locks hanging lichen-wise
Over wrinkled forehead and sunken eyes:
But why not show him (guarding truth)
As he used to be in his days of youth?
Look and believe! he once was young;
When he sung of Love, he felt what he sung;
A Poet then, if a Poet now,
Why with sad cheer and wither'd brow
Greet the good Friend who may wish to learn
How he look'd?—He looked thus, on the Banks of Erne,
(Nay, younger still, and merrier far,—
Already long set is the morning star)
Erne water dancing from dawn to dark:
Over the green hills caroll'd the lark,
Seagull screech'd over ocean-strand,
Plover wail'd on the brown moorland;
Woman was loveliness; life was wide,
Fill'd with wonders on every side;
Heaven clear open as far as God,
Maker and Guardian of sun and clod;
Truth, unselfishness, merely were right
Poets walk'd in celestial light.
Gloom and fear and longing and pain—
He forgets them now,—is almost fain
(But no!) to wish himself young again.