Inside a Weary Face

Line in speech marks taken from The Passion of Joan of Arc, a 1928 silent film. The accompanying image is also from the film; it depicts Renee Maria Falconetti in the title role.  

What poets and fanatics want  
is in that weary face:  
a deep, authentic suffering,  
a sacrifice to inner Hell.  
 
"Has God made you promises?"  
 
Has time, and art, and love?  
 
What promise have you made to them?  
 
The questions rise and judge,  
a spectral court  
like vultures old and fat  
about a roadside corpse.  
 
The rites of exorcism are forgot,  
so old is this demon  
that It cannot be borne  
without a lasting scar.  
 
In the footage, then the flesh...  
In conception, and in death...  
 
A sinner may be penitent,  
A saint stubborn with faith,  
but some possessions last and last,  
and can be seen inside a weary face.