Explore "Portrait and Reality (Sonnets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If on the closed curtain of my sight / My fancy paints thy portrait far away, / I see thee still the same, by night or day; / Crossing the crowded street, or moving bright / 'Mid festal throngs, or reading by the light / Of shaded lamp some friendly poet's lay, / Or shepherding the children at their play, -- / The same sweet self, and my unchanged delight.
But when I see thee near, I recognize / In every dear familiar way some strange / Perfection, and behold in April guise / The magic of thy beauty that doth range / Through many moods with infinite surprise, -- / Never the same, and sweeter with each change.
May, 1904.