You are beautiful and faded <br />Like an old opera tune <br />Played upon a harpsichord; <br />Or like the sun-flooded silks <br />Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. <br />In your eyes <br />Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, <br />And the perfume of your soul <br />Is vague and suffusing, <br />With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. <br />Your half-tones delight me, <br />And I grow mad with gazing <br />At your blent colours. <br /> <br />My vigour is a new-minted penny, <br />Which I cast at your feet. <br />Gather it up from the dust, <br />That its sparkle may amuse you.<br /><br />Amy Lowell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-lady/
