Gregory Christiano | + Follow Poet |
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A Portrait In the Attic

I can open this black foot-trunk, 
Look, this is the key! I found 
a few old letters 
Which I kept to comfort me. 

Yes, that pocket-watch is quaint 
and ancient; 
But I left it there with the ring, 
And took that tiny Portrait 
Which hangs by a crimson string. 

I have never opened that foot-trunk 
Since, many long years ago; 
I left it there in solitude 
To store things I used to know, 

But I came back to see the Portrait: 
I wonder if I can trace 
A look of that smiling person 
Left now as a faded face? 

It was like me once; but 
I remember 
The weary, relentless years, 
And life, with its fierce brief 
tempests 
And its long, long rain of tears. 

Is it strange to call it my Portrait? 
I now smile, for well I may 
To think of what I was 
And of what I am today. 

How that young heart would 
have pitied 
Me now - if his dreams 
had shown 
A quiet and weary man I am 
With all his illusions flown. 

It is strange; but life's currents 
drift us 
So surely and swiftly on, 
That we scarcely notice the 
changes 
And how many things have gone! 

And forget, while today absorbs us, 
How old mysteries are unsealed; 
How the old, old ties are loosened, 
And the old, old wounds are healed. 

And we say that our life is 
fleeting 
Like a story that time has told; 
But we fancy that we - we only - 
Are just what we were of old. 

So now and then, it is wisdom 
To gaze, as I do today, 
At that half-forgotten relic 
Of a time that has passed away. 

The very look of that Portrait, 
The memories that seem to 
cling 
To those fragile and faded 
letters 
And the pocket-watch and the ring. 

If they only stirred in my spirit 
Forgotten pleasure and pain, - 
Why, memory is often bitter, 
And almost always in vain. 

But the contrast of bygone hours 
Comes to tear a veil away - 
And I marvel to see the stranger 
Who is living in me today!

Copyright © Gregory Christiano | Year Posted 2005

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