PORTRAIT D'UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE
Pity thy unconfined
Clear spirit, whose enfranchised eyes
Use not their grosser sense?
Ah, no! thy bright intelligence
Hath its own Paradise,
A realm wherein to hear and see
Things hidden from our kind.
Not thou, not thou—'t is we
Are deaf, are dumb, are blind!
1888.
PORTRAIT D'UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE
(FORTUNY)
The hand that drew thee lies in Roman soil,
Whilst on the canvas thou hast deathless grown,
Endued by him who deemed it meaner toil
To give the world a portrait save thine own.
Yet had he found thy peer, and Rome forborne
Such envy of his conquest over Time,
Beauty had waked, and Art another morn
Had gained, and ceased to sorrow for her prime.
What spirit was it—where the masters are—
Brooding the gloom and glory that were Spain,
Through centuries waited in its orb afar
Until our age Fortuny's brush should gain?
What stroke but his who pictured in their state
Queen, beggar, noble, Philip's princely brood,
Could thus the boast of Seville recreate,
Even when one like thee before him stood?
Like thee, own child of Spain, whose beauteous pride,
Desire, disdain, all sins thy mien express,
451
