Explore "The Portrait of the Princess" by Helen Gray Cone on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tiny, stately maid of Spain, / With your formal fan and train! / Strange the spell the painter cast, / Strong to make you live and last! / Some one, Sweet, who bore your name, / Changed and grew, as people do; / Had adventures gay or tragic; / Died, one day -- yet here are you, / By the wand-like brush's magic / Held among us, just the same! / On your brow the same soft curls, / On your wrist the changeless pearls, / In the gems the moveless gleams, / In your eyes the selfsame dreams; / What a fairy-tale it seems!
Oh, that he who saw you thus, -- / Seized and sent you down to us, / On his canvas limned with skill / Tender curves of throat and cheek, -- / Might have added one thing still, / Made the grave lips ope and speak! / For I fain had heard it told / What the world was like around you, / That old world of cloth-of-gold / Where the cunning painter found you. / Tell me how your time was spent: / Had you any playmates then, / Or were all who came and went / Ceremonious dames and men? / Had you some tall hound to pet -- / Some caged bird, with eyes of jet? / As you moved, a soul apart, / Through that world of plume and glove, / Could your precious little heart / Fix on anything to love? / -- Sober, silent you remain, / Tiny, stately maid of Spain!