ACROSS what calm of tropic seas, 'Neath alien clusters of the nights, Looked, in the past, such eyes as these! Long-quenched, relumed, ancestral lights! The generations fostered them; And steadfast Nature, secretwise -- Thou seedling child of that old stem -- Kindled anew thy dark-bright eyes. Was it a century or two This lovely darkness rose and set, Occluded by grey eyes and blue, And Nature feigning to forget? Some grandam gave a hint of it -- So cherished was it in thy race, So fine a treasure to transmit In its perfection to thy face. Some father to some mother's breast Entrusted it, unknowing. Time Implied, or made it manifest, Bequest of a forgotten clime. Hereditary eyes! But this Is single, singular, apart: -- New-made thy love, new-made thy kiss, New-made thy errand to my heart. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DAFT DAYS by ROBERT FERGUSSON SONNET: 86 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION; A POEM. ENLARGED VERSION: BOOK 3 by MARK AKENSIDE ON THE ENGINE BY NIGHT by ALEXANDER ANDERSON TO MR. BARBAULD, WITH A MAP OF THE LAND OF MATRIMONY by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 50. MY LOVE by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |