Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PORTRAIT, by FORD MADOX FORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PORTRAIT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: She sits upon a tombstone in the shade
Last Line: And solves the riddles of the universe.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Life


SHE sits upon a tombstone in the shade;
One flake of sunlight, falling thro' the veils
Of quivering poplars, lights upon her hair,
Shot golden, and across her candid brow.
Thus in the pleasant gloom she holds the eye,
Being life amid piled up remembrances
Of the tranquil dead.
One hand, dropped lightly down,
Rests on the words of a forgotten name:
Therefore the past makes glad to stay her up.
Closed in, walled off: here's an oblivious place,
Deep, planted in with trees, unvisited:
A still backwater in the tide of life.
Life flows all round: sounds from surrounding streets,
Laughter of unseen children, roll of wheels,
Cries of all vendors.—So she sits and waits.
And she rejoices us who pass her by,
And she rejoices those who here lie still,
And she makes glad the little wandering airs,
And doth make glad the shaken beams of light
That fall upon her forehead: all the world
Moves round her, sitting on forgotten tombs
And lighting in to-morrow. She is Life:
That makes us keep on moving, taking roads,
Hauling great burdens up the unending hills,
Pondering senseless problems, setting sail
For undiscovered anchorages. Here
She waits, she waits, sequestered among tombs,
The sunlight on her hair. She waits, she waits:
The secret music, the resolving note
That sets in tune all this discordant world
And solves the riddles of the Universe.





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