One face looks out from all his canvases, <br />One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: <br />We found her hidden just behind those screens, <br />That mirror gave back all her loveliness. <br />A queen in opal or in ruby dress, <br />A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, <br />A saint, an angel -- every canvas means <br />The same one meaning, neither more nor less. <br />He feeds upon her face by day and night, <br />And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, <br />Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: <br />Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; <br />Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; <br />Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.<br /><br />Christina Georgina Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-an-artist-s-studio/
