The Incognita of Raphael

Long has the summer sunlight shone
On the fair form, the quaint costume;
Yet nameless still, she sits unknown,
A lady in her youthful bloom.

Fairer for this! no shadows cast
Their blight upon her perfect lot;
Whate'er her future, or her past,
In this bright moment matters not.

No record of her high descent
There needs, nor memory of her name:
Enough that Raphael's colours blent
To give her features deathless fame!

'Twas his anointing hand that set
The crown of beauty on her brow;
Still lives its earlier radiance yet,
As at the earliest, even now.

'Tis not the ecstasy that glows
In all the rapt Cecilia's grace;
Nor yet the holy, calm repose,
He painted on the Virgin's face.

Less of the heavens, and more of earth,
There lurk within these earnest eyes,
The passions that have had their birth,
And grown beneath Italian skies.

What mortal thoughts, and cares, and dreams,
What hopes, and fears, and longings rest,
Where falls the folded veil, or gleams
The golden necklace on her breast.

What mockery of the painted glow
May shade the secret soul within;
What griefs from passion's overflow,
What shame that follows after sin!

Yet calm as heaven's serenest deeps
Are those pure eyes, those glances pure;
And queenly is the state she keeps,
In beauty's lofty trust secure.

And who has stray'd, by happy chance,
Through ail those grand and pictured halls,
Nor felt the magic of her glance,
As when a voice of music calls?

Not soon shall I forget the day —
Sweet day, in spring's unclouded time,
While on the glowing canvass lay
The light of that delicious clime —

I mark' J the matchless colours wreathed
On the fair brow, the peerless cheek,
The lips, I fancied, almost breathed
The blessings that they could not speak.

fair were the eyes with mine that bent
Upon the picture their mild gaze,
And dear the voice that gave consent
To all the utterance of my praise.

' The portrait to which these verses refer is in the Pitti
Palace at Florence. It is one of the gems of that admirable collection.
Oh, fit companionship of thought;

Oh, happy memories, shrined apart;
The rapture that the painter wrought,
The kindred rapture of the heart!