Poem for Sunday, Jessye Norman, and other wonders

Southern Arts
(Haiku Sequence: Sight, Scent and Sound)
Roses full-blown, pale
old-fashioned blooms, fragile as
lovely grandmothers

Twilight, a charmed hour,
hushed and heavy with incense
from the magnolia

Night bird far away,
floating notes of silver song
on golden moonlight

(by JRC, May 1975, May 1975, Jan. 1998)

***

Concerning that song from The Bohemian Girl: Jessye Norman looks kind of like a scary giant (on Youtube). I remember seeing her on TV back in the 70s or 80s; she looked big, but still like a woman, and was so beautiful. Or maybe so ugly that you had to think she was beautiful.
I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches too great to count, and could boast
Of a high ancestral name—
But I also dreamt, which please me most,
That you loved me still the same.

I dreamt that suitors sought my hand,
That knights upon bended knee
With words that no maiden’s heart could withstand,
They pledged their love to me;
And I dreamt that one of that noble host
Came forth my hand to claim—
But I also dreamt, which charmed me most,
That you loved me still the same.
I've always been stuck between jealously and awe at people who are so fascinating to look at, that your fingers itch to paint them, but you know you could never capture that look.
If memory serves, the only beautiful person I ever painted was Jenny, and the result was disastrous. That's like the reason I don't like E. Manet's paintings: He painted Berthe Morisot into so many pictures, yet in all but one she just looks like a blob. And the one that looks like a real human, is like an unfinished sketch.