 | The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman |  |
VIOLET EYES
One can never quite forget
Eyes like yours, May Margaret,
Eyes of dewy violet!
Nothing like them, Margaret,
Save the blossoms newly born
Of the May and of the Morn.
Eyes like yours, May Margaret,
370
Nothing like them, Margaret,
Save the blossoms newly born
Of the May and of the Morn.
Oft my memory wanders back
To those burning eyes and black,
Whose heat-lightnings once could move
Me to passion, not to love;
Longer in my heart of hearts
Linger those disguisèd arts,
Which, betimes, a hazel pair
Used upon me unaware;
And the wise and tender gray—
Eyes wherewith a saint might pray—
Speak of pledges that endure
And of faith and vigils pure;
But for him who fain would know
All the fire the first can show,
All the art, or friendship fast,
Of the second and the last,—
And would gain a subtler worth,
Part of Heaven, part of earth,—
He these mingled rays can find
In but one immortal kind:
In those eyes of violet,
In your eyes, May Margaret!
To those burning eyes and black,
Whose heat-lightnings once could move
Me to passion, not to love;
Longer in my heart of hearts
Linger those disguisèd arts,
Which, betimes, a hazel pair
Used upon me unaware;
And the wise and tender gray—
Eyes wherewith a saint might pray—
Speak of pledges that endure
And of faith and vigils pure;
But for him who fain would know
All the fire the first can show,
All the art, or friendship fast,
Of the second and the last,—
And would gain a subtler worth,
Part of Heaven, part of earth,—
He these mingled rays can find
In but one immortal kind:
In those eyes of violet,
In your eyes, May Margaret!
| The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman | |