Coiling his neck one blood line, like a hair

Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,—

Looking exalted visitation,—leaned

From its black panel; in its eyes a hate

Demonic; hair—a glowing auburn, late

A dull, enduring golden.

"Just one thread

Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said,

"Twisting a burning ray, he—staring dead."