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Song [Thy face I have seen as one seeth]

1861 –

1909

Thy face I have seen as one seeth
A face in a dream,
Soft drifting before me as drifteth
A leaf on the stream:
A face such as evermore fleeth
From following feet,
A face such as hideth and shifteth
Evasive and sweet.

Thy voice I have heard as one heareth
Afar and apart,
The wood-thrush that rapturous poureth
The song of his heart;
Who heedeth is blest, but who neareth
In wary pursuit,
May see where the singer upsoareth,
The forest is mute.

Sophie Jewett, a poet, translator, and professor, was born on June 3, 1861, in Moravia, New York, to Dr. Charles Carroll Jewett, a country physician, and Ellen Ransom Burroughs. Jewett’s father died during her childhood, prompting the family, including her two sisters and brother, to move to Buffalo, New York. Around age twenty, she traveled to England and Italy, usually in the company of one of her sisters, who was an artist. Her sojourns in the latter country inspired what became Italian Sketches (Suburban Press, 1917).

About Sophie Jewett

Themes

Desire

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More by this poet

Mignonne

^{Fourteenth Century Form}

Mignonne, whose face bends low for my caressing,
New and unknown to-night thy beauty seemeth;
Dimly I read thine eyes as one who dreameth.

Sophie Jewett

1910

I Speak Your Name

I speak your name in alien ways, while yet
November smiles from under lashes wet.
In the November light I see you stand
Who love the fading woods and withered land,
Where Peace may walk, and Death, but not Regret.

Sophie Jewett

1910

Across the Fields

Across the fields, the happy fields that lay
Unfaded yet, one visionary day
We walked together, and the world was sweet.
Each heard the whisper neither might repeat,
Love's whisper underneath our light word-play.

Sophie Jewett

1910

Poems

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Song [Thy face I have seen as one seeth]

More by this poet

Mignonne

I Speak Your Name

Across the Fields

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