Yet, in some magic, purple, sunset hour,
Old portraits, shadowy on the tarnished gold—
Ivory, black of velvet—wake to hold
New promise from the past of splendid insubstantial power.
Pale painted hands Velasquez pictured, guide
Her soaring thoughts again to nothingness
Miraged so fair, dies all her weariness
And glows a sudden glory from the rubies of her pride.
But lo, old horror of the world of men
And all its brazen clangour stills her blood...