Explore "The Portrait" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ In some quaint Nurnberg _maler-atelier_ / Uprummaged. When and where was never clear / Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom / 'Twas painted -- who shall say? itself a gloom / Resisting inquisition. I opine / It is a Duerer. Mark that touch, this line; / Are they deniable? -- Distinguished grace / Of the pure oval of the noble face / Tarnished in color badly. Half in light / Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite / Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn; / Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn / Of light, disdainful eyes and... well! no use! / Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse / Of patience. -- Often, vaguely visible, / The portrait fills each feature, making swell / The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair / Start out in living hues; astonished, "There! -- / The picture lives! " your soul exults, when, lo! / You hold a blur; an undetermined glow / Dislimns a daub. -- "Restore? " -- Ah, I have tried / Our best restorers, and it has defied.
/ Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps a ghost / Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost; / A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared / Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared / Of Nuremberg one sunny morn when she / Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility / Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied / A feverish brush -- her face! -- Despaired and died.