Page:Poems Blake.djvu/125

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THE PICTURE.
(OF JAMES LOWELL PUTNAM, IN ATHENÆUM GALLERY.)

A calm, sweet face, with earnest eyes
And thoughtful brow, full-arched above it,
A mouth whose graveness won surprise,
Whose tender sweetness made one love it;
A face that told how souls aspire
That look beyond to-day's revealing;
A boy, with all of manhood's fire,—
A man, with all of boyhood's feeling.

They told his life, his honored name,
His spotless worth, his spirit's beauty,
His few fair years—yet known to fame,
His sacrifice for right and duty:
His earnest love, his winning grace,—
But while they spoke of death and glory,
I only read the silent face,
And dreamed its eyes told all the story.