The guilty never slept: and look, some tears
Still lingering on the white rose of her cheek.
Be those the drops, I wonder,
Of guilty anguish, or of chaste despair?
This death-like image is the sculptor’s task,
Not mine.
Or is it I who sleep, and dream all this,
And dream beside, that once before I tried
To paint that face—the daylight drawing in
As now—and when somehow the lamp was out,