How does one immortalize beauty? Ted Hughes poem, whose speaker is a widower whows us how... through A Portrait. But the portrait is more than just a portrait. It contains the very heart of him., his wife, who has been gone for more than 20 years. Sergeant, the painter has captured her beauty so well, the woman in the picture is still as alive as she used to be, but having gone for a long time, the man has acknowledged the truth that she can only be a portrait and that she is in another world waiting for him.
Personally, I find the lines /Nay, her last smile shall be for me/ My last look be for her./ romantic--- ideal! A love that is shared by the two and faithfulness between a husband a wife showing indeed the often ignored wedding vow "til death do us part!"
The Portrait
by Ted Hughes
The portrait there above
my bed
They tell me is a work of art;
My Wife,--since twenty years she's dead:
Her going nearly broke my heart.
Alas! No little ones we had
To light our hearth with joy and glee;
Yet as I linger lone and sad
I know she's waiting me.
The picture? Sargent painted it,
And it has starred in many a show.
Her eyes are on me where I sit,
And follow me where'er I go.
She'll smile like that when I am gone,
And I am frail and oh so ill!
Aye, when I'm waxen, cold and wan,
Lo! She'll be smiling still.
So I have bade them slash in strips
That relic of my paradise.
Let flame destroy those lovely lips
And char the starlight of her eyes!
No human gaze shall ever see
Her beauty,--stranger heart to stir:
Nay, her last smile shall be for me,
My last look be for her.
Another version reads:
Portrait
by Ted Hughes
Just forget the moral stricture.
Let me sit
With my belly to the table,
Swilling all the wine I'm able,
Pip a-lit;
Not a stiff and stuffy croaker
In a frock coat and a choker
Let me be;
But a rollicking old fellow
With a visage ripe and mellow
As you see.
And of death as artful dodger,
Such I am;
I defy the Doc's advising
And I don't for sermonising
Care a damn.
Though Bill Shakespeare had in his dome
Both - I'd rather wit than wisdom
For my choice;
In the glug glug of the bottle,
As I tip it down my throttle,
I rejoice.
For I would not have folks doleful
When I go;
So if to my shade you're quaffing
I would rather see you laughing,
As you know.
In Life's Great Experiment
I'll have heaps of merriment
E're I pass;
And though devil beckons me,
And I've many a speck on me,
Maybe some will recon me -
Worth a glass.
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