As her poetry was cold imagery of her ardent inner life, so are the titles of Francisca’s two books of verse symbols of her artistic aims. _Marmores_ and _Esphinges_: the first, the marble of the statue, external aspect of impassivity; the second, the silent sphinx, symbol of internal passionlessness. She was a vestal tending the eternal flame, but the fire was carved out of stone. Her artistic life traces a curve from religious serenity and impassability to compassion, thence to a sort of indifferentism. All this was inherent in her early paganism, to which in later life she really returns. Her mastery of form is, one feels, a mastery of her emotions; much of her poetry is impassive, chiefly _a fior di labbra_, as the Italians would say,--on the rim of her lips. Not that she is insincere. For, as there is a sincerity of candour, so is there a sincerity of silence. The sphinx, a poetic figure, cannot, from its very muteness, be a poet, though its speechlessness lends itself to poetry. Francisca Julia, however much she would be the sphinx, more than once gives the answers to her own questionings. It is then that she is most at one with her art, producing some of the finest poetry that has come out of modern Brazil. Her _ars poetica_ is summed up in the two sonnets grouped under the title _Musa Impassivel_ (Impassive Muse) and serving as the motto of the collection _Marmores_. I Musa! um gesto siquer de dor ou de sincero Lucto, jamais te afeie o candido semblante! Deante de um Job, conserva o mesmo orgulho, deante De um morto, o mesmo olhar e sobrecenho austero. Em teus olhos não quero a lagrima; não quero Em tua bocca o suave e idyllico descante. Celebra ora um phantasma anguiforma de Dante, Ora o vulto marcial de um guerreiro de Homero. Dá-me o hemistichio de ouro, a imagem attractiva, A rima, cujo som, de uma harmonia crebra, Cante aos ouvidos d’alma; a estrophe limpa e viva; Versos que lembrem, com os seus barbaros ruidos, Ora o aspero rumor de un calháo que se quebra, Ora o surdo rumor de marmores partidos. II O’ Musa, cujo olhar de pedra, que não chora, Gela o sorriso ao labio e as lagrimas estanca! Dá-me que eu vá comtigo, em liberdade franca, Por esse grande espaço onde o impassivel mora. Leva-me longe, ó Musa impassivel e branca! Longe, acima do mundo, immensidade em fóra, Onde, chammas lançando ao cortejo da aurora, O aureo plaustro do sol nas nuvens solavanca. Transporta-me de vez, numa ascenção ardente, A’ deliciosa paz dos Olympicos-Lares Onde os deuses pagãos vivem eternamente; E onde, num longo olhar, eu possa ver comtigo Passarem, através das brumas seculares, Os Poetas e os Héroes do grande mundo antigo.[4]