To The Author's Portrait

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!