The Ideal

  It could ne'er be those beauties of ivory vignettes;
  The varied display of a worthless age,
  Nor puppet-like figures with castonets,
  That ever an heart like mine could engage.

  I leave to Gavarni, that poet of chlorosis,
  His hospital-beauties in troups that whirl,
  For I cannot discover amid his pale roses
  A flower to resemble my scarlet ideal.

  Since, what for this fathomless heart I require
  Is—Lady Macbeth you! in crime so dire;
  —An Æschylus dream transposed from the South—

  Or thee, oh great "Night" of Michael-Angelo born,
  Who so calmly thy limbs in strange posture hath drawn,
  Whose allurements are framed for a Titan's mouth.