"On a Picture" A Cline poem from 1911, and its inspiration

Cline's poem, "On a Picture", was written in 1911, and published in Poems (1914). In Cline's own copy of the book, he noted that the inspiration was the 1887 painting "Empress Theodora" by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902).  Here is the poem, and the painting.

 

                    On a Picture

Her eyes are like twin pools of silent waters

Within a forest, hedged by cypress trees,

At night, when all the tempests and the heat,

The white tumultuous heat of day, are over;

When night has brought her coolness and her shade

And the fair little moon, that climbs the heavens,

Reflected in twin images upon

The placid surface of the jetty pools.

 

And so the depths are hidden; only one

May look upon them, note the wavering moon

And all the stars of heaven there, yet guess

The sombre fathoms where move sinister tides

Beneath the perfect calm. And oh, the calm

Of those still eyes is like a thought of death!