Stately, she moves in calm, patrician grace,
Conscious of power the multitude to thrill!
While, as a slave, proud Passion at her will
Leaves on her cheek its fiery or tearful trace.

The glooms of anguish dust her mobile face,
When cruel words, that maddening thoughts instill,
Sting, by a prescient sense of future ill,
The new, pure heart that throbs beneath the lace.

But in that sad and agonising hour,
When fate relentless taints her perfect dream,
And lips that loved insult what they should prize,
It seems as if all Art by her grand power
Had taken visible shape, to come supreme
And gaze upon us from her luminous eyes!