This is genuine aristocracy of comportment; it is genuine attitude rather than absence of feeling. Note that the poet’s Muse is not to reveal the sign of her emotions lest they sully the beauty of her countenance; the emotions, however, are there, and tears, at times, fall from the stony eyes. Such emotion, in her finer work, is most artistically blended with the aloofness that Francisca Julia sought. Impassivity is a meaningless word for poets, since it cannot by very nature seek to express itself, being the antithesis of expression; withdrawal, however, is a legitimate artistic trait, and she exhibits it in as successful a degree as has been attained by any poet of her country. So much a part of her nature is her coyness, that even when conquered by feminine pity she conveys her mood through an imagery none the less effective for its indirection; as in _Dona Alda_: Hoje Dona Alda madrugou. Ás costas Solta a opulenta cabelleira de ouro, Nos labios um sorriso de alegria, Vae passear ao jardim; as flores, postas Em longa fila, alegremente, em coro, Saúdam-n’a: “Bom dia!” Dona Alda segue … Segue-a uma andorinha: Com seus raios de luz o sol a banha; E Dona Alda caminha.… Uma porção de folhas a acompanha.… Caminha.… Como um fulgido brilhante O seu olhar fulgura. Mas--que cruel!--ao dar um passo adeante, Emquanto a barra do roupão sofralda, Pisa um cravo gentil de lactea alvura.… E este, sob os seus pés, inda murmura: “Obrigado, Dona Alda.”[5] This is not poetry that shakes one to the depths, nor does it come from one who was so shaken; but there is artistry in ivory as well as in marble, and Francisca Julia here has caught the secret of the light touch that stirs the deep response. There is a remarkable sonnet that opens the collection _Esphinges_, and I wonder whether it is not, in symbolized form, the keynote to the woman’s poetic aloofness. Read for the first time the _Dança de Centauras_ (Dance of the Centaurs, and note that these centaurs are females); a sonnet of sculptural, plastic beauty, you are likely to tell yourself, as vivid as a bas-relief come suddenly to life. Read it again, more slowly, and its impassivity seems to melt into concrete emotion; this is virgin modesty hiding behind verse as at other times behind raiment. The poet herself is in the dance of the centaurs and leads them in their flight when Hercules appears. It is worth noting, too, that the poem does not reach its climax until the very last words are spoken; the wild rout is a mystery until the very end. Form and content thus truly become the unity that they are in the artist’s original conception. DANÇA DE CENTAURAS