FADED PICTURES
by: William Vaughn Moody
(1869-1910)
- NLY two
patient eyes to stare
- Out of the canvas. All the rest--
- The warm green gown, the small hands pressed
- Light in the lap, the braided hair
-
- That must have made the sweet low brow
- So earnest, centuries ago,
- When some one saw it change and glow--
- All faded! Just the eyes burn now.
-
- I dare say people pass and pass
- Before the blistered little frame,
- And dingy work without a name
- Stuck in behind its square of glass.
-
- But I, well, I left Raphael
- Just to come drink these eyes of hers,
- To think away the stains and blurs
- And make all new again and well.
-
- Only, for tears my head will bow,
- Because there on my heart's last wall,
- Scarce one tint left to tell it all,
- A picture keeps its eyes, somehow.
"Faded Pictures" is reprinted
from Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody. William
Vaughn Moody. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912. |
MORE POEMS BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY |
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