Long neglect has worn away
Half the sweet enchanting smile;
The poem immediately begins with a sharp image of the central character having lost "half" of her "sweet enchanting smile." The phrase "long neglect" gives the distinct sense that this woman is missing a source of care and love in her life. At the same time, the use of the word "worn" also implies that this diminishment has occurred over a lengthy stretch of time. These lines ground the reader in the main ideas of the poem, jumping right into the effects of time and decay.
Still beneath the picture twined,
Tells what once those features were,
These lines occur midway through this short poem and describe the remnants of the main character's beauty. Here, Brontë employs a complex image, showing that these traces in this woman's face tell "what once those features were." She is saying that in the current state of her appearance, one can still perceive what this woman previously looked like, as they paint "their image on the mind." This passage makes the point that even after beauty fades, its afterimage still lingers, which is a particularly sad scene in that it shows what time and neglect have taken from this woman.
Fair the hand that traced that line,
“Dearest, ever deem me true”;
The final stanza flashes back to a time in the past when the main character appeared to be writing a love letter. The description of her hand as "fair" is the first clue that this scene occurred in the past, as this woman's beauty is shown in an unaltered form. The line that she writes ("Dearest, ever deem me true") is both tragic and ironic in that she is unaware that her beauty will fade and that this lover will not remain with her. Neither of these things will stay forever, as she seems to hope they will.
