| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | A Portrait | | By James Berry Bensel (1856–1886) |
| | | IN the white sweetness of her dimpled chin | |
| The pink points of her perfumed fingers press, | |
| And ’round her tremulous mouth’s loveliness | |
| The tears and smiles a sudden strife begin: | |
| First one and then the other seems to win: | 5 |
| And o’er her drooping eyes a golden tress | |
| Falls down to hide what else they might confess | |
| Their blue-veined lids are striving to shut in. | |
| The yellow pearls that bind her throat about | |
| With her pale bosom’s throbbing rise or fall: | 10 |
| The while her thoughts like carrier-doves have fled | |
| To that far land where armies clash and shout, | |
| And where, beyond love’s reach, a soldier tall | |
| With staring eyes and broken sword lies dead. | | | | |
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