To A Picture Of Eleonora Duse As "Francesca da Rimini"

by Sara Teasdale

　　

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Oh flower-sweet face and bended flower-like head! Oh violet whose purple cannot pale, Or forest fragrance ever faint or fail, Or breath and beauty pass among the dead! Yea, very truly has the poet said, No mist of years or might of death avail To darken beauty, brighter thro' the veil We see the glimmer of its-wings outspread. Oh face embowered and shadowed by thy hair, Some lotus blossom on a darkened stream! If ever I have pictured in a dream My guardian angel, she is like to this, Her eyes know joy, yet sorrow lingers there, And on her lips the shadow of a kiss.

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