Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, <br />With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing, <br />Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, <br />And a knot of red roses sown in under there <br />Where the shadows are lost in her hair. <br /> <br />Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground <br />Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound; <br />And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint <br />And as sweet as the master of old used to paint <br />Round the lips of their favorite saint! <br /> <br />And that lace at her throat-- and fluttering hands <br />Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands, <br />The flakes of their touches-- first fluttering at <br />The bow-- then the roses-- the hair and then that <br />Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat. <br /> <br />Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this, <br />Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, <br />Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair <br />Nor the gold of her smile-- O what artist could dare <br />To expect a result half so fair?<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-discouraging-model/
