The Genuine Portrait

Ask you why this portrait bears not
The romance of those lips and lashes?
Why that bosom's blush it shares not,
Mirrors not her eyes' quick flashes?
Is it false in not revealing
Her girlish consciousness of beauty —
The graceful, half-developed feeling,
Desire — opposing fancied duty?
For on the canvas, shadowy hair
Floats backward from an earnest face;
The features one expression bear,
The various lines one story trace.
And what is their expression? Love.
Not wildfire passion — bright but damp, —
A purer flame, which points above,
Though kindled at an earthly lamp.
Call it devotion — call it joy;
'Tis the true love of woman's heart,
Emotion, pure from alloy,
Action, complete in every part.
Blame not the artist, then, who leaves
The circumstances of the hour —
Within the husk the fruit perceives,
Within the husk the future flower.
He took the one pervading grace
Which charms in all, and fixed it there,
The deepest secret of her face —
The key to her locked character —
The spirit of her life, which beats
In every pulse of thought and feeling —
The central fire which lights and heats,
Explaining earth, and heaven revealing.