Explore "A Discouraging Model" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, / With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing, / Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, / And a knot of red roses sown in under there / Where the shadows are lost in her hair.
Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground / Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound; / And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint / And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint / Round the lips of their favorite saint!
And that lace at her throat -- and the fluttering hands / Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands, / The flakes of their touches -- first fluttering at / The bow -- then the roses -- the hair -- and then that / Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat.
O what artist on earth with a model like this, / Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, / Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair, / Nor the gold of her smile -- O what artist could dare / To expect a result half so fair?