The Portrait

Related poetry:

1. On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People A Brother and Sister O I admire and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears. Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast: Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest In one fair […]...
2. You know that Portrait in the Moon You know that Portrait in the Moon So tell me who ’tis like The very Brow the stooping eyes A fog for Say Whose Sake? The very Pattern of the Cheek It varies in the Chin But Ishmael since we met ’tis long And fashions intervene When Moon’s at full ‘Tis Thou I say My […]...
3. Portrait (For S. A.)TO write one book in five years Or five books in one year, To be the painter and the thing painted, … where are we, bo? Wait-get his number. The barber shop handling is here And the tweeds, the cheviot, the Scotch Mist, And the flame orange scarf. Yet there is more-he sleeps […]...
4. Self-Portrait At 28 I know it’s a bad title But I’m giving it to myself as a gift On a day nearly canceled by sunlight When the entire hill is approaching The ideal of Virginia Brochured with goldenrod and loblolly And I think “at least I have not woken up With a bloody knife in my hand” By […]...
5. Self-Portrait, 1969 He’s still young ; thirty, but looks younger Or does he?… In the eyes and cheeks, tonight, Turning in the mirror, he saw his mother, Puffy; angry; bewildered… Many nights, Now, when he stares there, he gets angry: Something unfulfilled there, something dead To what he once thought he surely could be Now, just the […]...
6. To My Mother Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother,” Therefore by that dear name I long have called you- You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death […]...
7. Those Were The Days The sun came up before breakfast, Perfectly round and yellow, and we Dressed in the soft light and shook out Our long blond curls and waited For Maid to brush them flat and place The part just where it belonged. We came down the carpeted stairs One step at a time, in single file, Gleaming […]...
8. PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY I Through my bedroom window The coal carts jolted over the cobbles A slow heavy rhythm full, Light and fast returning empty. The coal office manager was a dwarf With sixty year old skin On a ten year old’s body and Hornrims on a wizened wizard’s face. The enormous shire horses neighed In warning if […]...
9. Portrait A child draws the outline of a body. She draws what she can, but it is white all through, She cannot fill in what she knows is there. Within the unsupported line, she knows That life is missing; she has cut One background from another. Like a child, She turns to her mother. And you […]...
10. A Solemn thing within the Soul A Solemn thing within the Soul To feel itself get ripe And golden hang while farther up The Maker’s Ladders stop And in the Orchard far below You hear a Being drop A Wonderful to feel the Sun Still toiling at the Cheek You thought was finished Cool of eye, and critical of Work He […]...
11. How Could You Not for Jane kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; Small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower Visible against the firs douses the crocuses. We knew it would happen one day this week. Now, when I learn you have died, I go To […]...
12. Romance To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed, Scented and warm against my beating breast; To whisper soft and quivering your name, And drink the passion burning in your frame; To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek, And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak Love words, mad words, dream […]...
13. The Portrait The portrait there above my bed They tell me is a work of art; My Wife, since twenty years she’s dead: Her going nearly broke my heart. Alas! No little ones we had To light our hearth with joy and glee; Yet as I linger lone and sad I know she’s waiting me. The picture? […]...
14. Portrait of a Lady Thou hast committed- Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead. The Jew of Malta. I AMONG the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself-as it will seem to do- With “I have saved this afternoon for you”; And four wax candles in the […]...
15. Portrait d'Une Femme Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you – lacking someone else. You have been second […]...
16. Portrait of a Baby He lay within a warm, soft world Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, Wave upon wave that broke and whirled To vanish in the grey-green gloom, Perspectiveless and shadowy. A bulging world that had no walls, A flowing world, most like the sea, Compassing all infinity Within a shapeless, ebbing […]...
17. Portrait of a Boy After the whipping he crawled into bed, Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black, frayed rag of tattered cloud before In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed, Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor Fat […]...
18. Portrait of the Artist Oh, lead me to a quiet cell Where never footfall rankles, And bar the window passing well, And gyve my wrists and ankles. Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair, With hempen cord go bind me, And, of your mercy, leave me there, Nor tell them where to find me. Oh, lock the portal as […]...
19. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams, Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together In a movement supporting the face, which swims Toward and away like the hand Except […]...
20. A Portrait in Georgia Hair-braided chestnut, Coiled like a lyncher’s rope, Eyes-fagots, Lips-old scars, or the first red blisters, Breath-the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash Of black flesh after flame....
21. Stone Shadows For an entire year she dressed in all the shades Of ash – the gray of old paper; the deeper, Almost auburn ash of pencil boxes; the dark, nearly Black marl of oak beds pulled from burning houses. That year, even her hair itself was woven With an ashen white, just single threads here & […]...
22. Self-Portrait The steadfastness of generations of nobility Shows in the curving lines that form the eyebrows. And the blue eyes still show traces of childhood fears And of humility here and there, not of a servant’s, Yet of one who serves obediantly, and of a woman. The mouth formed as a mouth, large and accurate, Not […]...
23. On A Portrait Of Wordsworth WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind, Then break against the rock, and show behind The lowland valleys floating up to crowd The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined Before the sovran thought of his own mind, And very meek with inspirations proud, Takes […]...
24. Sympathetic Portrait Of A Child The murderer’s little daughter Who is barely ten years old Jerks her shoulders Right and left So as to catch a glimpse of me Without turning round. Her skinny little arms Wrap themselves This way then that Reversely about her body! Nervously She crushes her straw hat About her eyes And tilts her head To […]...
25. Winter Landscape The three men coming down the winter hill In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds At heel, through the arrangement of the trees, Past the five figures at the burning straw, Returning cold and silent to their town, Returning to the drifted snow, the rink Lively with children, to the older men, […]...
26. On a Portrait of a Deaf Man The kind old face, the egg-shaped head, The tie, discreetly loud, The loosely fitting shooting clothes, A closely fitting shroud. He liked old city dining rooms, Potatoes in their skin, But now his mouth is wide to let The London clay come in. He took me on long silent walks In country lanes when young. […]...
27. The Captive's Dream Methought I saw him but I knew him not; He was so changed from what he used to be, There was no redness on his woe-worn cheek, No sunny smile upon his ashy lips, His hollow wandering eyes looked wild and fierce, And grief was printed on his marble brow, And O I thought he […]...
28. Old Man Old Man, or Lads-Love, – in the name there’s nothing To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings […]...
29. Before Her Portrait In Youth As lovers, banished from their lady’s face And hopeless of her grace, Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place, Fondly adore Some stealth-won cast attire she wore, A kerchief or a glove: And at the lover’s beck Into the glove there fleets the hand, Or at impetuous command Up from the kerchief floats the virgin […]...
30. Crucifix Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave. I This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered By angel’s choirs; fire melted sky. He asked his Father:”Why am I abandoned…?” And told his Mother: “Mother, do not cry…” II Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned. Peter sank into the stone trance… Only there, where […]...
31. The Orphan My father and mother are dead, Nor friend, nor relation I know; And now the cold earth is their bed, And daisies will over them grow. I cast my eyes into the tomb, The sight made me bitterly cry; I said, “And is this the dark room, Where my father and mother must lie?” I […]...
32. Among School Children I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way – the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling […]...
33. The Burnt Child Matches among other things that were not allowed Never would be Lying high in a cool blue box That opened in other hands and there they all were Bodies clean and smooth blue heads white crowns White sandpaper on the sides of the box scoring Fire after fire gone before I could hear the scratch […]...
34. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
35. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait Well, as you say, we live for small horizons: We move in crowds, we flow and talk together, Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces, So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,- Yet know so little of them; only seeing The small bright circle of our consciousness, Beyond which lies the dark. Some […]...
36. Love Incarnate (Dante, Vita Nuova) To all those driven berserk or humanized by love This is offered, for I need help Deciphering my dream. When we love our lord is LOVE. When I recall that at the fourth hour Of the night, watched by shining stars, LOVE at last became incarnate, The memory is horror. In his […]...
37. Before the arthritis set in It’s Wednesday, September 6th and a birthday, Again, these things arrive tediously on time With wry regularity – and sadly, no sense Of providence or charity. Instead of counting a year less I am Said to be blessed with sixty one While actually I’m the age where I want To regress about six, hover around […]...
38. The Happy Change How bless’d Thy creature is, O God, When with a single eye, He views the lustre of Thy Word, The dayspring from on high! Through all the storms that veil the skies And frown on earthly things, The Sun of Righteousness he eyes, With healing on His wings. Struck by that light, the human heart, […]...
39. KINDERGARTEN PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER AT MARDI GRAS She looks rather pathetic, really, Leaning against the black air, The three mangled fingers of her left hand Clutching a yellow purse, Her right arm raised over her head As if to shield herself From the silver shower of stars Raining down upon her. Her mouth is a crack Growing beneath her nose. Two dimples […]...
40. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts, That all sin is divided into two parts. One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important, And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant, And the other kind of […]...