A PORTRAIT.

She was not very beautiful, if it be beauty's test

To match a classic model when perfectly at rest;

And she did not look bewitchingly, if witchery it be,

To have a forehead and a lip transparent as the sea.

The fashion of her gracefulness was not a follow'd rule,

And her effervescent sprightliness was never learnt at school;

And her words were all peculiar, like the fairy's who‘ spoke pearls;’

And her tone was ever sweetest midst the cadences of girls.

Said I she was not beautiful? Her eyes upon your sight

Broke with the lambent purity of planetary light,

And an intellectual beauty, like a light within a vase,

Touched every line with glory of her animated face.

Her mind with sweets was laden, like a morning breath in June,

And her thoughts awoke in harmony, like dreamings of a tune,

And you heard her words like voices that o'er the waters creep,

Or like a serenader's lute that mingles with your sleep.

She had an earnest intellect — a perfect thirst of mind,

And a heart by elevated thoughts and poetry refin'd,

And she saw a subtle tint or shade with every careless look,

And the hidden links of nature were familiar as a book.

She's made of those rare elements that now and then appear,

As if remov'd by accident unto a lesser sphere,

Forever reaching up, and on, to life's sublimer things,

As if they had been used to track the universe with wings.