Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MR. LUCAS, WRITTEN WHILST SITTING TO HIM FOR MY PORTRAIT, 1828, by MARY RUSSELL MITFORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MR. LUCAS, WRITTEN WHILST SITTING TO HIM FOR MY PORTRAIT, 1828, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh young and richly gifted! Born to claim
Last Line: By the reflexion of their own pure light.
Subject(s): Lucas, John (1807-1874); Models; Portraits


Oh young and richly gifted! born to claim
No vulgar place amidst the sons of fame;
With shapes of beauty haunting thee like dreams,
And skill to realise Art's loftiest themes;
How wearisome to thee the task must be
To copy these coarse features painfully;
Faded by time and paled by care, to trace
The dim complexion of this homely face;
And lend to a bent brow and anxious eye
Thy patient toil, thine Art's high mastery.
Yet by that Art, almost methinks divine,
By touch and colour and the skilful line
Which at a stroke can strengthen and refine,
And mostly by the invisible influence
Of thine own spirit, gleams of thought and sense
Shoot o'er the care-worn forehead, and illume
The heavy eye, and break the leaden gloom:
Even as the sun-beams on the rudest ground
Fling their illusive glories wide around,
And make the dullest scene of nature bright
By the reflexion of their own pure light.





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