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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PORTRAIT OF A LADY, by SARAH NORCLIFFE CLEGHORN Poet's Biography First Line: Her eyes are sunlit hazel Last Line: "the brave and gentle friend." Subject(s): Women | |||
Her eyes are sunlit hazel: Soft shadows round them play. Her dark hair, smoothly ordered, Is faintly touched with grey. Full of a gentle brightness Her look and language are: -- Kind tongue that never wounded, Sweet mirth that leaves no scar. Her dresses are soft lilac And silver-pearly grey. She wears, on meet occasion, Modes of a bygone day, Yet moves with bright composure In fashion's pageant set, Until her world she teaches Its costume to forget. With score of friends foregathered Before a cheerful blaze, She loves good ranging converse Of past and future days. Her best delight (too seldom) From olden friends to hear How fares the small old city She left this many a year. (There is a still more pleasant, A cosier converse still, When, all the guests departed, Close comrades talk their fill. Beside our smouldering fire We muse and wonder late; Commingling household gossip With talk of gods and fate.) All seemly ways of living, -- Proportion, comeliness, Authority and order,-- Her loyal heart possess. Then with what happy fingers She spreads the linen fair In that great Church of Bishops That is her darling care! And yet I dare to forecast What her new name must be Writ in the mystic volume Beside the crystal sea: -- Instead of "True Believer," The golden quill hath penned, "Of the poor beasts that perish, The brave and gentle friend." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARISTOTLE TO PHYLLIS by JOHN HOLLANDER A WOMAN'S DELUSION by SUSAN HOWE JULIA TUTWILER STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN by ANDREW HUDGINS THE WOMEN ON CYTHAERON by ROBINSON JEFFERS TOMORROW by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD LADIES FOR DINNER, SAIPAN by KENNETH KOCH GOODBYE TO TOLERANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV COMRADE JESUS by SARAH NORCLIFFE CLEGHORN |
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