132
THE ANCESTRESS.
BERTHA.
What do you mean? Speak, speak!—the very sound
Of my own voice is terrible!—what curse?—
Whose is this picture?
LEITRA.
It is The Ancestress!
BERTHA.
My Ancestress?—and a most lovely one:
Yet is her beauty awful:—the pale cheek
Looks as if passion had fed on its rose;
The lips are pale, too, though their graceful curve
Fascinates in its scorn; her loose dark air[1],
Wild as a sibyl's, sweeps as if 't had caught
Its wildness and its darkness from the storm;
- ↑ presumably a misprint for 'hair'
