This is not poetry that shakes one to the depths, nor does it come from one who was so shaken; but there is artistry in ivory as well as in marble, and Francisca Julia here has caught the secret of the light touch that stirs the deep response.
There is a remarkable sonnet that opens the collection Esphinges, and I wonder whether it is not, in symbolized form, the keynote to the woman’s poetic aloofness.
Read for the first time the Dança de Centauras (Dance of the Centaurs, and note that these centaurs are females); a sonnet of sculptural, plastic beauty, you are likely to tell yourself, as vivid as a bas-relief come suddenly to life. Read it again, more slowly, and its impassivity seems to melt into concrete emotion; this is virgin modesty hiding behind verse as at other times behind raiment. The poet herself is in the dance of the centaurs and leads them in their flight when Hercules appears. It is worth noting, too, that the poem does not reach its climax until the very last words are spoken; the wild rout is a mystery until the very end. Form and content thus truly become the unity that they are in the artist’s original conception.
DANÇA DE CENTAURAS
Patas dianteiras no ar, boccas livres dos freios,
Núas, em grita, em ludo, entrecruzando as lanças,
Eil-as, garbosas vêm, na evolução das danças
Rudes, pompeando á luz a brancura dos seios.
A noite escuta, fulge o luar, gemem as franças,
Mil centauras a rir, em lutas e torneios,