The poem below describes an artist who idealizes his subjects — meaning he paints them as he would like to remember them, not as how they are in real life. The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, which would normally follow the rhyme scheme noted at the left. How does the poem's break in this rhyme scheme in its final line help provide greater meaning in the poem? a One face looks out from all his canvases,
b One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
b We found her hidden just behind those screens,
a That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
a A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
b A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
b A saint, an angel; —every canvass means
a The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
c He feeds upon her face by day and night,
d And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
c Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
d Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
c Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
d Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.