O painter bold and true, lord of every flying hue,
Whose immortal hand all lovely things implore,
Now to thy glory set, what never artist yet
Dared before:
Paint a picture of the mistress I adore!
What voice of earth is this, that passionate with bliss
Calls me from the coldness of serenest art?
Youth, thy happy eyes I know, I recognise:
Say what part
Can Apelles play to serve a lover’s heart?
To give sighs memory, shadows reality,
All the hungry hours with gazing awe to slay,
Quick, oh, quick, deceive time and absence, give
To the day
Beauty, night but shows only to take away.
Impossible! no stretch of utmost skill can fetch
That fair invisible in colours to confine.
How shall pencil trace unhelped her holy grace?
How divine
Lids of what sweet curve, what lips incarnadine?
Nay! do but see, the room is startled with her bloom;
A thousand shadows fill the haunted atmosphere;
Birds in the tree-tops calm are shrilling of her charm:
Do but hear,
Love’s own graphic voice shall paint her to thine ear.
Speak, then, and let thy fire my duller hand inspire.
What ambrosial hair, O lover, must I paint?
What divinest gold fetched from sacred brows of old
For thy saint,
Helen’s or Berenice’s? Come, I shall not faint.
Not Helen’s, nor that hung streaming the stars among;
Only paint for me the tresses of a girl;
Tresses dear and deep, tresses soft as sleep–
Not a curl
But for its loveliness would impoverish the pearl.
What darling locks are these that dim the very breeze,
Incomparable painter, with their shower?
Yet, ah! yet once more this ringlet I implore;
Every flower
Just as she places it in some sweet careless hour!
From your rapturous tones where love himself enthrones,
Charming youth, I caught these touches of her grace.
Turn now your sparkling eyes, oh, now my soul advise!
See I trace
Venus help me now! her unknown heavenly face.
Outlines, lovely, vague, my haunted spirit plague.
What suggestions dim and sweet they breed!
Shadows gather thick, and my heart beats quick:
O proceed!
From the canvas now let dawn her face indeed.
See, unclouding clear, her very face appear;
Bloom ineffable, no sun-warm peach can show.
Are these the glorious eyes that did your heart surprise
Long ago?
This the ruby lip, your sighs remember so?
Not this, not this! Her face, O painter, couldst thou trace,
Painter, her beauty immortal, sweet, severe,
Thy ravished soul in bliss beyond the morning’s kiss
‘Twould insphere!–
intoxicated lover, let me hear.
If cold and perfect art could love’s burning heart
Borrow, and not tremble to possess,
Then my tongue might tell, then your soul might spell
The excess
Of her sweet and utter loveliness.
(Manmohan Ghose)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Night Poems, Faces Poems, Youth Poems, Beauty Poems, Happiness Poems, Art Poems, Birds Poems, Morning Poems, Hair Poems, Speaking PoemsBased on Keywords: incarnadine, graphic, unhelped, apelles, berenice, impoverish, sun-warm, enthrones, insphere, unclouding