The Portrait Of Rachel Fayne Poem by David Lewis Paget

She glided into the studio
And dropped her clothes on the floor,
Gave the artist a pirouette,
And said: 'Do you want any more? '
He shrugged, and told her to take a seat
While he etched the background in,
'I'll paint you draped on the canapé,
I'll tell you, when I begin! '

She wandered naked around the room,
At home in the artist's den,
Rachel Fayne was the model's name,
She'd modelled since she was ten.
From auburn hair to her shapely calves
She'd stared from a hundred scenes,
That hung in frames under different names
As a slave, or a Gypsy Queen.

Her lips were full and her eyes were green,
They'd startled men in the past,
Staring from frames in the galleries,
In the windows of shops they passed,
So haughty and so beautiful,
And beyond the reach of men,
Yet here she'd bare, for all to share
Through the brush in the artist's den!

She hadn't sat for John Durrell
Before, but she knew his work,
The famous 'Woman of Paddington',
The 'Girl by the Friendly Kirk, '
His 'Venus under the Waterfall' -
Her heart had skipped a bit,
As she stared green-eyed in her wounded pride,
Would he never ask her to sit?

The summons came through a friend of hers,
'Be there, first thing in the morn! '
She'd bathed, and powdered her body well
By the light of the breaking dawn,
For John Durrell was a master, skilled
And she knew it would seal her fame,
To be tied to an R.A. masterpiece,
And the famous Durrell name.

'Don't ask too many questions, he's
Intense, and immersed in paint,
He's hard and cold, and inclined to scold
If you don't sit still, or faint,
He'll look at you like a curlicue,
An enigma of line and form,
His passion is brushed in his pictures,
So, it won't keep your body warm! '

He laid her out on the canapé
And took up his sable brush,
Mixed the tint on his palette there,
For the flesh tones, and the blush,
He worked with a growing intensity
And he frowned, as if in pain,
As he brought the features to life within
The portrait of Rachel Fayne.

She wasn't to see the canvas, he
Would cover it, out of sight,
Before she dressed, and took her fee,
Was bundled into the night,
Each day she lay on the canapé,
Each day he'd frown and paint,
'There's something isn't quite right, ' he'd say,
In a tone of quiet constraint.

While Rachel felt there was something wrong
With her, a cold or flu,
Perhaps it was her complexion,
It had taken a lighter hue,
She felt quite sick to her stomach,
Couldn't eat, and her sight was dim,
But he'd continued on painting, so
She held her sickness in.

While there on the painted canvas was
A beauty, so profound,
Her eyes of the deepest green, that seemed
To follow him around,
The lips were a pouting marvel,
Breathing life to the easel there,
Durrell becoming excited with
Each brush stroke through her hair.

His heart was beating much faster with
Each stroke applied anew,
The love that cozened, eluded him
Began to seep on through,
While Rachel gasped to take each breath
And couldn't speak, or think,
As the woman within the picture, well...
Her eyes, they seemed to blink!

The canvas facing the furthest wall
Belongs to John Durrell,
The first and the only portrait that
He swears he'll never sell,
For where the woman had been, is white,
No paint was left behind,
And Rachel Fayne, before she died,
They say that she was blind!

22 January 2010