Poems (Toke)/The two portraits

by Emma Toke

THE TWO PORTRAITS.

HILE on those well-known portraits round,
 I often gaze alone,
Two, 'mid the forms unknown to me,
 I love to look upon.

The same fair face they both pourtray—
 Both young and happy seem;
And oft they come upon my heart,
 Like visions of a dream.

And yet, long numbered with the dead,
 That face I never knew;
But still, amid familiar ones,
 It seems familiar too.

Yes; on thy brow, sweet ancestress!
 Full oft I love to gaze,
And mark thy fair and graceful form,
 Thy garb of other days:

For thine is that sweet, nameless spell,
 That steals o'er every heart,
And lingers 'mid the memories
 That never can depart.

The light of peace and holy joy
 Is shining on thy brow;
And every speaking feature tells
 That thou art happy now.

No care has dimmed thy spirit yet,
 No earthly shade is nigh;
Thy gentle gravity but speaks
 Of holy thoughts and high.

Thy heart and hand alike are bound
 In wedlock's sacred bands;
And by thy side, in manly youth,
 Thy happy husband stands.

All earth is full of hope to thee;—
 The past a dream of youth,—
The future one bright path of love,
 Of tenderness and truth.

No marvel thou art happy then,—
 No marvel, as I gaze,
That peaceful brow should seem a pledge
 Of bright and lengthened days!

Then to that other face I turn;—
 Thou still art young and fair,
And happy too,—and yet, methinks
 A gentle change is there.

A shade of quiet thoughtfulness
 Is on thy placid brow;
As if the cares of motherhood
 Were stealing o'er thee now.

And mingling there, there seems a tinge
 Of gentle sadness too;—
Not sorrow, but some thought that comes
 To soften and subdue,

Thy pensive eyes seem watching, where
 Thy happy children play;
While blending with thy thoughts of them,
 Come hours long past away.

The loved, the lost, the holy dead
 Are swiftly passing by,
And blending with the fairy forms
 That glad thy loving eye.

I like to look upon that face
 It ever seems to me
An image of what woman's heart
 And woman's life should be:—

A loving spirit, lowly mind,
 A gentle heart and fair,
So filled with home, the world can find
 No room to enter there.

And such tradition says wert thou:
 To all around thee dear;
Thy pious life and bounteous hand
 Are still remembered here.

But soon, alas! thy race was run;
 Scarce ten short years had fled
Of thy calm wedded life, when thou
 Wert numbered with the dead.

Nor cloudless e'en that fleeting day;
 For thou, in those few years,
O'er more than one sweet infant, shed
 A mother's bitterest tears:

And far away from thy loved home,
 Where happiest years had sped,
Thy fragile form decayed at last,
 Thy gentle spirit fled.

And only two memorials now
 Of all thy worth remain;—
Thy portrait on the wall,—thy tomb,
 In yonder holy fane.

But still, whene'er I gaze upon
 That fair and gentle brow,
I trust, as thou wert happy then,
 Thou art far happier now.

E.

January 15, 1841.