My Soul is a princess in ceremonial dress,
whose exile, eternal and royal, is reflected
in the great empty mirrors of an old Spanish palace,
like a galley forgotten in a harbour.

At the feet of her armchair, stretched out nobly,
are two sad-eyed Scottish greyhounds
who, when she so wishes, hunt symbolic animals
in the forest of Dream and Enchantment.

Her favourite page-boy, whose name is Formerly,
reads bewitching poems to her in a soft voice,
while she sits motionless, a tulip in her fingers,
and listens as their mystery dies within her...

The park around her spreads out with its foliage,
its marbles, its basins, its balustraded ramps,
and she, gravely, gets drunk on the glorious dreams
which noble horizons hold for us.

She is there, resigned, and unsurprised,
not struggling, too aware that all is fatal,
and, despite some inborn disdain, feeling
sensitive to pity like the waves sensing the breeze.

There she is, resigned and gentle in her sobs,
more sombre only when she evokes in dreams
some Armada sunk into eternal falsehood,
and so many fine hopes drowned beneath the waves.

On evenings laden with crimson, which her sigh with pride,
she views the Van Dyck portraits with their fingers long and pure,
pale figures in black velvet on the aged gold of the walls,
and they with great defunct airs make her dream of empire.

The old gilded mirages have dispelled her grief,
and in the visions where her boredom takes refuge,
suddenly - glory or sunshine - a ray strikes her
and lights up inside her all the rubies of arrogance.

But with a sad smile she calms those fevers, 
and fearful of the crowd with its iron tumults
she listens to life - in the distance - like the ocean...
and the secret grows deeper on her lips.

Nothing ripples the pale water of her eyes
where sits the veiled Spirit of Dead Cities;
and through the halls, where the doors open noiselessly,
she walks, charming herself with mysterious words.

The water of the fountains below falls in vain cascades,
and she, pale at the window, a tulip in her fingers,
stands there reflected in the mirrors of a past age
like a galley forgotten in a harbour.

My Soul is a princess in ceremonial dress.