C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Beauty

Translation of Miss Katharine Hillard

BEAUTIFUL am I as a dream in stone;

And for my breast, where each falls bruised in turn,

The poet with an endless love must yearn—

Endless as Matter, silent and alone.

A sphinx unguessed, enthroned in azure skies,

White as the swan, my heart is cold as snow;

No hated motion breaks my lines’ pure flow,

Nor tears nor laughter ever dim mine eyes.

Poets, before the attitudes sublime

I seem to steal from proudest monuments,

In austere studies waste the ling’ring time;

For I possess, to charm my lover’s sight,

Mirrors wherein all things are fair and bright—

My eyes, my large eyes of eternal light!