Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A REMEMBERED PICTURE, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A REMEMBERED PICTURE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: They haunt me still - those calm, pure, holy eyes!
Last Line: To the deep souls that find no echo here.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Death; Portraits; Dead, The


THEY haunt me still -- those calm, pure, holy eyes!
Their piercing sweetness wanders through my dreams:
The soul of music that within them lies,
Comes o'er my soul in soft and sudden gleams:
Life -- spirit life, immortal and divine,
Is there -- and yet how dark a death was thine!

Could it -- oh! could it be -- meek child of song?
The might of gentleness on that fair brow --
Was the celestial gift no shield from wrong?
Bore it no talisman to ward the blow?
Ask if a flower, upon the billows cast,
Might brave their strife -- a flute-note hush the blast?

Are there not deep sad oracles to read
In the clear stillness of that radiant face?
Yes, even like thee must gifted spirits bleed,
Thrown on a world, for heavenly things no place!
Bright exiled birds that visit alien skies,
Pouring on storms their suppliant melodies.

And seeking ever some true, gentle breast,
Whereon their trembling plumage might repose,
And their free song notes, from that happy nest,
Gush as a fount that forth from sunlight flows;
Vain dream! the love whose precious balms might save,
Still, still denied -- they struggle to the grave.

Yet my heart shall not sink! -- another doom,
Victim! hath set its promise in thine eye;
A light is there, too quenchless for the tomb,
Bright earnest of a nobler destiny;
Telling of answers, in some far-off sphere,
To the deep souls that find no echo here.





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