The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

Her eyes were like to haunted wells
Where guileful necromancy dwells,
And beckons those who gaze therein
To enter gorgeous halls of sin
That glow beneath the wizard wave
Like Eden courts, but hide a grave.

Her eyes were beautifully strange,
Alive with tender, melting change
Of many colors, many beams,
Commixed and sweet as fairy dreams,
But aye, whatever tint they caught,
Right perilous to tranquil thought,
And fit to drive an anchorite,
For safety, into desert night,
Or make a seraph close his eyes
And wing his way to sheltering skies.
No younker looked between their brims
Without a thrill in heart and limbs,
A something like delicious fear
That startled much, yet lured anear,
As though a little bird he were,
Bewildered by a serpent's stare.

Moreover, when she walked with men
In forest ways, or even when

She flouted them in rompish games
Beneath the gaze of puckered dames,
Her beauty breathed a weird perfume
(More luscious than of rose in bloom)
That made whoever stood anigh
Turn dreamy-gentle in the eye,
And deeply breathe to catch again
The sorcery that thrilled his brain,
Nor care if elders leaned askance
To study him with surly glance.