Suggested By A Portrait From The Pencil Of F. Stone

Composed 1834.--Published 1835

[This Portrait has hung for many years in our principal sitting-room, and represents J. Q. as she was when a girl. The picture, though it is somewhat thinly painted, has much merit in tone and general effect: it is chiefly valuable, however, from the sentiment that pervades it. The anecdote of the saying of the monk in sight of Titian’s picture was told in this house by Mr. Wilkie, and was, I believe, first communicated to the public in this poem, the former portion of which I was composing at the time. Southey heard the story from Miss Hutchinson, and transferred it to the Doctor; but it is not easy to explain how my friend Mr. Rogers, in a note subsequently added to his Italy, was led to speak of the same remarkable words having many years before been spoken in his hearing by a monk or priest in front of a picture of the Last Supper, placed over a Refectory-table in a convent at Padua.--I.F.]

One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.

Beguiled into forgetfulness of care Due to the day’s unfinished task; of pen Or book regardless, and of that fair scene In Nature’s prodigality displayed Before my window, oftentimes and long I gaze upon a Portrait whose mild gleam Of beauty never ceases to enrich The common light; whose stillness charms the air, Or seems to charm it, into like repose; Whose silence, for the pleasure of the ear, Surpasses sweetest music. There she sits With emblematic purity attired In a white vest, white as her marble neck Is, and the pillar of the throat would be But for the shadow by the drooping chin Cast into that recess--the tender shade, The shade and light, both there and every where, And through the very atmosphere she breathes, Broad, clear, and toned harmoniously, with skill That might from nature have been learnt in the hour When the lone shepherd sees the morning spread Upon the mountains. Look at her, whoe’er Thou be that, kindling with a poet’s soul, Hast loved the painter’s true Promethean craft Intensely--from Imagination take The treasure,--what mine eyes behold see thou, Even though the Atlantic ocean roll between.

A silver line, that runs from brow to crown And in the middle parts the braided hair, Just serves to show how delicate a soil The golden harvest grows in; and those eyes, Soft and capacious as a cloudless sky Whose azure depth their colour emulates, Must needs be conversant with upward looks, Prayer’s voiceless service; but now, seeking nought And shunning nought, their own peculiar life Of motion they renounce, and with the head Partake its inclination towards earth In humble grace, and quiet pensiveness Caught at the point where it stops short of sadness.

Offspring of soul-bewitching Art, make me Thy confidant! say, whence derived that air Of calm abstraction? Can the ruling thought Be with some lover far away, or one Crossed by misfortune, or of doubted faith? Inapt conjecture! Childhood here, a moon Crescent in simple loveliness serene, Has but approached the gates of womanhood, Not entered them; her heart is yet unpierced By the blind Archer-god; her fancy free: The fount of feeling, if unsought elsewhere, Will not be found.

Her right hand, as it lies Across the slender wrist of the left arm Upon her lap reposing, holds--but mark How slackly, for the absent mind permits No firmer grasp--a little wild-flower, joined As in a posy, with a few pale ears Of yellowing corn, the same that overtopped And in their common birthplace sheltered it ’Till they were plucked together; a blue flower Called by the thrifty husbandman a weed; But Ceres, in her garland, might have worn That ornament, unblamed. The floweret, held In scarcely conscious fingers, was, she knows, (Her Father told her so) in youth’s gay dawn Her Mother’s favourite; and the orphan Girl, In her own dawn--a dawn less gay and bright, Loves it, while there in solitary peace She sits, for that departed Mother’s sake. --Not from a source less sacred is derived (Surely I do not err) that pensive air Of calm abstraction through the face diffused And the whole person. Words have something told More than the pencil can, and verily More than is needed, but the precious Art Forgives their interference--Art divine, That both creates and fixes, in despite Of Death and Time, the marvels it hath wrought.

Strange contrasts have we in this world of ours! That posture, and the look of filial love Thinking of past and gone, with what is left Dearly united, might be swept away From this fair Portrait’s fleshly Archetype, Even by an innocent fancy’s slightest freak Banished, nor ever, haply, be restored To their lost place, or meet in harmony So exquisite; but here do they abide, Enshrined for ages. Is not then the Art Godlike, a humble branch of the divine, In visible quest of immortality, Stretched forth with trembling hope?--In every realm, From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains, Thousands, in each variety of tongue That Europe knows, would echo this appeal; One above all, a Monk who waits on God In the magnific Convent built of yore To sanctify the Escurial palace. He-- Guiding, from cell to cell and room to room, A British Painter (eminent for truth In character, and depth of feeling, shown By labours that have touched the hearts of kings, And are endeared to simple cottagers)-- Came, in that service, to a glorious work, Our Lord’s Last Supper, beautiful as when first The appropriate Picture, fresh from Titian’s hand, Graced the Refectory: and there, while both Stood with eyes fixed upon that masterpiece, The hoary Father in the Stranger’s ear Breathed out these words:--“Here daily do we sit, Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here Pondering the mischiefs of these restless times, And thinking of my Brethren, dead, dispersed, Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze Upon this solemn Company unmoved By shock of circumstance, or lapse of years, Until I cannot but believe that they-- They are in truth the Substance, we the Shadows.”

So spake the mild Jeronymite, his griefs Melting away within him like a dream Ere he had ceased to gaze, perhaps to speak: And I, grown old, but in a happier land, Domestic Portrait! have to verse consigned In thy calm presence those heart-moving words: Words that can soothe, more than they agitate; Whose spirit, like the angel that went down Into Bethesda’s pool, with healing virtue Informs the fountain in the human breast Which by the visitation was disturbed. ----But why this stealing tear? Companion mute, On thee I look, not sorrowing; fare thee well, My Song’s Inspirer, once again farewell!

Jemima Quillinan, the eldest daughter of Edward Quillinan, Wordsworth’s future son-in-law. The portrait was taken when she was a school-girl, and while her father resided at Oporto.--ED.

Wilkie. See the Fenwick note.--ED.

1837.

Left not unvisited a glorious work,

1835.

“When Wilkie was in the Escurial, looking at Titian’s famous picture of the Last Supper, in the Refectory there, an old Jeronymite said to him: ‘I have sate daily in sight of that picture for now nearly three score years; during that time my companions have dropt off, one after another--all who were my seniors, all who were my contemporaries, and many, or most of those who were younger than myself; more than one generation has passed away, and there the figures in the picture have remained unchanged! I look at them till I sometimes think that they are the realities, and we but shadows!’

I wish I could record the name of the monk by whom that natural feeling was so feelingly and strikingly expressed.

The shows of things are better than themselves,

says the author of the tragedy of Nero, whose name also I could wish had been forthcoming; and the classical reader will remember the lines of Sophocles:

ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲν ὄντας ἄλλο, πλὴν εἴδωλ’, ὅσοιπερ ζῶμεν, ὴ κούφην σκιάν.

These are reflections which should make us think

Of that same time when no more change shall be But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayd Upon the pillars of Eternity, That is contrain to mutability; For all that moveth doth in change delight: But henceforth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight, O that great Sabaoth God grant me that Sabbath’s sight.