Patas dianteiras no ar, boccas livres dos freios, Núas, em grita, em ludo, entrecruzando as lanças, Eil-as, garbosas vêm, na evolução das danças Rudes, pompeando á luz a brancura dos seios. A noite escuta, fulge o luar, gemem as franças, Mil centauras a rir, em lutas e torneios, Galopam livres, vão e veem, os peitos cheios De ar, o cabello solto ao léo das auras mansas. Empallidece o luar, a noite cae, madruga.… A dança hyppica pára e logo atrôa o espaço O galope infernal das centauras em fuga: E’ que, longe ao clarão do luar que impallidece, Enorme, acceso o olhar, bravo, do heróico braço Pendente a clava argiva, Hercules apparece.[6] It is the twilight and the night that bring to her lines their more subjective moods; but even here, rarely do present emotions invade her. It is as if she must feel by indirection, even as she writes--now harking back to a longing, now looking forward unmoved, to the inevitable end. Yet there are moments when the impassive muse forgets her part; she strides down from her pedestal and cries out upon Nature as a “perfidious mother,” creator, in the long succession of days and nights, of so much vanity ever transforming itself. This Parnassianism then, is the mask of pride. And in such a sonnet as _Angelus_ the mask is thrown off: Oft, at this hour, when my yearning speaks Through the lips of night and the droning chimes, Chanting ever of love whose grief o’erwhelms me, I would be the sound, the night, full madly drunk With darkness,--the quietude, yon melting cloud,-- Or merge with the light, dissolving altogether. This pantheism is paralleled, in _Vidas Anteriores_ (Previous Lives) by her consciousness of having lived, in the past, a multiplicity of lives. It may be said, in general, that as a modern pagan she is far more real than as the rhyming Christian she reveals herself in her few attempts at religious poetry. Shortly before her death she wrote a sonnet called _Esperança_ (Hope), that is clear presentiment. She did not weaken at its approach; she was, as near as is humanly possible, the impassive muse of her own sonnets: I know it’s a kindly road and the journey’s brief.