Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Portrait
By Sarah Helen Power Whitman (18031878)A
That face, magnetic as the morning’s beam:
While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing,
Like Memnon wakening from his marble dream.
The dark hair floating o’er it like a plume;
The sweet, imperious mouth, whose haughty valor
Defied all portents of impending doom.
That seemed not of earth’s mortal mixture born,
Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian,
And far, sweet dreams of “faery lands forlorn.”
Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps,
Lit by that prescience of a heavenly morrow
Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps.
My lonely musings at the twilight hour,
Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted,
With marvel and with mystery and with power.
Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore,
Or listening to the autumn woods intoning
The wild, sweet legend of the lost Lenore;
Have stood entranced beside a moldering tomb
Hard by that visionary Lake of Auber,
Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume;
Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air,
And felt their molten-golden music timing
To the heart’s pulses, answering unaware.
Sleep restfully after life’s fevered dream!
Sleep, wayward heart! till on some cool, bright morrow,
Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning’s beam.
And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall,
Time, as a birthright, shall restore the glory,
And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall.