Sonnet on a Photograph of an Unknown Lady, Sent in a Letter
ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF AN UNKNOWN LADY, SENT IN A LETTER
Smile on and be my sunlight for a while,
Face that I fain would look at for a day!
Who is the lady? Comes she to our isle?
Knows she the color of our Wayland clay?
She never came here nor will ever come
To see our meadows and their wealth of hay,
And the slow Sudbury stream, fringed all the way
With lilies lovely as herself, almost,
She never can, and therefore I am dumb,
And on her beauty gazing like a ghost,
Or some enchanted spirit chained thereto,
Can only whisper to my heart, " Alas!
Such were the faces Carlo Dolci drew,
But we, poor souls! may only glance and pass. "
Smile on and be my sunlight for a while,
Face that I fain would look at for a day!
Who is the lady? Comes she to our isle?
Knows she the color of our Wayland clay?
She never came here nor will ever come
To see our meadows and their wealth of hay,
And the slow Sudbury stream, fringed all the way
With lilies lovely as herself, almost,
She never can, and therefore I am dumb,
And on her beauty gazing like a ghost,
Or some enchanted spirit chained thereto,
Can only whisper to my heart, " Alas!
Such were the faces Carlo Dolci drew,
But we, poor souls! may only glance and pass. "
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