Yet I have felt what terrors may consort In women’s cheeks, the Graces’ soft resort; My hand hath shook at gentle hands’ access, And trembled at the waving of a tress; My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed, Where ladies’ eyes have set their ambuscade. The rustle of a robe hath been to me The very rattle of love’s musketry; Although my heart hath beat the loud advance, I have recoiled before a challenging glance, Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance. And from it all, this knowledge have I got,— The whole that others have, is less than they have not; All which makes other women noted fair, Unnoted would remain and overshone in her. How should I gauge what beauty is her dole, Who cannot see her countenance for her soul; As birds see not the casement for the sky? And as ’tis check they prove its presence by, I know not of her body till I find My flight debarred the heaven of her mind. Hers is the face whence all should copied be, Did God make replicas of such as she; Its presence felt by what it does abate, Because the soul shines through tempered and mitigate: Where—as a figure labouring at night Beside the body of a splendid light— Dark Time works hidden by its luminousness; And every line he labours to impress Turns added beauty, like the veins that run Athwart a leaf which hangs against the sun. There regent Melancholy wide controls; There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles; There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits, Like bubbles on dark water, or as flits A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites; There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy’s breath, And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand, And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wand And on this lady’s heart, looked you so deep, Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep: Upon the heavy blossom of her lips Hangs the bee Musing; nigh her lids eclipse Each half-occulted star beneath that lies; And in the contemplation of those eyes, Passionless passion, wild tranquillities. * * * * * EPILOGUE. TO THE POET’S SITTER, _Wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the Portrait_. ALAS! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem), My figured descant hides the simple theme: Or in another wise reproving, say I ill observe thine own high reticent way. Oh, pardon, that I testify of thee What thou couldst never speak, nor others be!