Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PICTURE, by ANACREON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PICTURE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Painter, by unmatch'd desert
Last Line: All of her, but voice, is here.
Alternate Author Name(s): Anakreon; Anacreontea
Subject(s): Paintings & Painters


PAINTER, by unmatch'd desert
Master of the Rhodian art,
Come, my absent mistress take,
As I shall describe her: make
First her hair, as black as bright,
And if colors so much right
Can but do her, let it too
Smell of aromatic dew;
Underneath this shade, must thou
Draw her alabaster brow;
Her dark eyebrows so dispose
That they neither part nor close,
But by a divorce so slight
Be disjoin'd, may cheat the sight:
From her kindly killing eye
Make a flash of lightning fly,
Sparkling like Minerva's, yet
Like Cythera's mildly sweet:
Roses in milk swimming seek
For the pattern of her cheek:
In her lip such moving blisses,
As from all may challenge kisses;
Round about her neck (outvying
Parian stone) the Graces flying;
And o'er all her limbs at last
A loose purple mantle cast;
But so ordered that the eye
Some part naked may descry,
An essay by which the rest
That lies hidden, may be guess'd.
So, to life th' hast come so near,
All of her, but voice, is here.





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