To The Author'S Portrait

Painted at Rydal Mount, by W. Pickersgill, Esq., for St. John's College, Cambridge.--ED.

Composed 1832.--Published 1835

[The last six lines of this Sonnet are not written for poetical effect, but as a matter of fact, which, in more than one instance, could not escape my notice in the servants of the house.--I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Go, faithful Portrait! and where long hath knelt Margaret, the saintly Foundress, take thy place; And, if Time spare the colours for the grace Which to the work surpassing skill hath dealt, Thou, on thy rock reclined, though kingdoms melt And states be torn up by the roots, wilt seem To breathe in rural peace, to hear the stream, And think and feel as once the Poet felt. Whate'er thy fate, those features have not grown Unrecognised through many a household tear More prompt, more glad, to fall than drops of dew By morning shed around a flower half-blown; Tears of delight, that testified how true To life thou art, and, in thy truth, how dear!