Portrait Of A Woman by Edgar Lee Masters — Stanza

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Portrait Of A Woman

by Edgar Lee Masters

The pathos in your face is like a peace,

It is like resignation or a grace

Which smiles at the surcease

Of hope. But there is in your face

The shadow of pain, and there is a trace

Of memory of pain.

I look at you again and again,

And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives

My search for your despair.

I look at your pale hands, I look at your hair;

And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare

Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves

A flutter of color running under leaves,

Such anguished dreams in your eyes!

And I listen to you speak

Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle,

Or a star's twinkle.

Sometimes as we talk you rise

And leave the room, and then I rub a streak

Of a tear from my cheek.

You tell me such magical things

Of pictures, books, romance

And of your life in France

In the varied music of exquisite words,

And in a voice that sings.

All things are memory now with you,

For poverty girds

Your hopes, and only your dreams remain.

And sometimes here and there

I see as you turn your head a whitened hair,

Even when you are smiling most.

And a light comes in your eyes like a passing ghost,

And a color runs through your cheeks as fresh

As burns in a girl's flesh.

Then I can shut my eyes and feel the pain

That has become a part of you, though I feign

Laughter myself. One sees another's bruise

And shakes his thought out of it shuddering.

So I turn and clamp my will lest I bring

Your sorrow into my flesh, who cannot choose

But hear your words and laughter,

And watch your hands and eyes.

Then as I think you over after

I have gone from you, and your face

Comes to me with its grace

Of memory of unfound love:

You seem to me the image of all women

Who dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof,

Or sew, or sit by windows, or read books

To hide their Secret's looks.

And after a time go out of life and leave

No uttered words but in their silence grieve

For Life and for the things no tongue can tell:

Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurts

Poor men and women in this demi-hell.

Perhaps your pathos means that it is well

Death in his time the aspiring torch inverts,

And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and hands

Moving in pain'd whiteness are put under

The soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.