Beneath A Photoraph

Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)



Phoebus, who taught me art divine,
Here tried his hand where I did mine;
And his white fingers in this face
Set my Fair's sigh-suggesting grace.
O sweetness past profaning guess,
Grievous with its own exquisiteness!
Vesper-like face, its shadows bright
With meanings of sequestered light;
Drooped with shamefast sanctities
She purely fears eyes cannot miss,
Yet would blush to know she IS.
Ah, who can view with passionless glance
This tear-compelling countenance!
He has cozened it to tell
Almost its own miracle.
Yet I, all-viewing though he be,
Methinks saw further here than he;
And, Master gay! I swear I drew
Something the better of the two!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
106

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCBDDBEFGHIJKKLL
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 637
Words 110
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 19

Francis Thompson

The Rt Rev Francis William Banahene Thompson was Bishop of Accra from 1983 to 1996. more…

All Francis Thompson poems | Francis Thompson Books

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