Twelve Japanese Painters

pon the very shores of sleep. O careless passer-by, look deep! PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN BY UTAMARO In robes like clouds at sunset rolled About the dying sun,? In splendid vesture of purple and gold That a thousand toiling days have spun For thee, O imperial one!? With the cunning pomp of the later years, With their pride and glory and stress, Thou risest; and thy calm forehead bears These like a crown; but thy frail mouth wears All of their weariness. Thou art one of the great, who mayest stand Where Cleopatra stood, Aspasia, Rhodope, at each hand; And even the proud tempestuous mood Of Sappho shall rule thy blood. Thy throat, in its slender whiteness bare, Seems powerless to sustain The gorgeous tower of thy gold-decked hair,? Like a lily's stem which the autumn air Maketh to shrink and wane. More haunting music, more luring love Round thy sinuous form hold sway Than the daughters of earth have knowledge of; For thou art the daughter of fading day, Touched with all hope's decay. And the subtle languor, the prismic glow Of a ripeness overpast Burns through the wonderful curving flow Of thy garments; and they who love thee know A loathing at the last. For they are the lovers of living things,? Stars, sunlight, morning's breath; But thou, for all that thy beauty brings Such songs as the Summer scattereth,? Thou art of the House of Death. But there was one, in thy golden day, Who saw thy poppied bloom, And loved not thee but the heart's de...