After Our Likeness
Ada Cambridge
1844 to 1926
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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Its passions, its wild longings, and its pain;
Its mortal features clothed with the divine.
Some day the earthly shadows will be cast
This self-same face, but with the image bright,
Across that sunshine—it may be to dim
Childishly sweet, yet with the dawning grace
So far too pure for any words to paint—
A little shadow of a childish face,
They will re-settle in the calm of death,
But 'twill be there—the likeness—to the last.
The light wherein the little features shine,
In glory and in beauty infinite.
Fair, oval, broad-brow'd face—small, delicate head—
Some day the lucid waters, in which lie
I think most of the day when I shall see
God's likeness, in the fair face of a child,
Awhile the visible countenance of Him;
When this child's beauty will have all return'd,
Nevermore undefined, and faint, and dim;
When earth's hopes are relinquish'd, unfulfill'd.
Ay, as I look, it seems quite plain to me.
They will re-settle when the soul is still'd,
The dear face in that perfect purity,
The pure reflection will shine out again
Stirred up and troubled like a stormy sea;—
Of thought and wisdom on her lips and eyes.
When the sweet eyes are laid asleep, and when
By the world's sin and passion undefiled—
This self-same face, yet like the face of Him,
Ah! while I look, and trace each tender line,
But they will yet re-settle—by-and-by.
The heart is hush'd. Truly God's likeness then—
Transparent skin, with blue veins shining through—
All the soft outlines, beautiful and true,
Before me now a little picture lies—
Bring me the echo of the words God said.
Made in our image—sure 'tis that we see,
They will re-settle in those after-years
Strange, mystic light, so undefined and faint,
More lovely for the trouble and the tears.
'Tis a reflection of the Face divine.
When life's hard lessons have been conned and learn'd;
Pictured those glorious lineaments, will be
The mirror clear, unsullied by a breath.