In an Artist's Studio

One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint an angel - every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night;
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

--Christina Rossetti