Beauty

My face is a marmoreal dream, O mortals! And on my breast all men are bruised in turn, So moulded that the poet's love may burn Mute and eternal as the earth's cold portals.

Throned like a Sphinx unveiled in the blue deep, A heart of snow my swan-white beauty muffles; I hate the line that undulates and ruffles: And never do I laugh and never weep.

The poets, prone beneath my presence towering With stately port of proudest obelisks, Worship with rites austere, their days devouring;

For I have charms to keep their love, pure disks That make all things more beautiful and tender: My large eyes, radiant with eternal splendour! LA BEAUTÉ.