The Artist

Why do you subdue yourself in golds and purples? Why do you dim yourself with folded silks? Do you not see that I can buy brocades in any draper’s shop, And that I am choked in the twilight of all these colors. How pale you would be, and startling— How quiet; But your curves would spring upward Like a clear jet of flung water, You would quiver like a shot-up spray of water, You would waver, and relapse, and tremble. And I too should tremble, Watching. Murex-dyes and tinsel— And yet I think I could bear your beauty unshaded.