5
Literary Gazette, 8th May, 1830, Page 308
5. The Portrait.
Ah! let me look upon thy face,
Fling back thy clustering hair;
It is a happiness to gaze
On any thing so fair.
'Tis such spring-morning loveliness—
The blushing and the bright—
Beneath whose sway, unconsciously,
The heaviest heart grows light.
The crimson flushing up the rose
When some fresh wind has past,
Parting the boughs—just such a hue
Upon thy cheek is cast.
Thy golden curls, where sunshine dwells
As in a summer home;
The brow whose snow is pure and white
As that of ocean foam.
For grief has thrown no shadow there,
And worldliness no stain;
It is as only flowers could grow
In such a charmed domain.
I would thy fate were in my hands:
I'd bid it but allow
Thy future to be like thy past,
And keep thee just as now.
L. E. L.
