Page:Language of the Eye.djvu/96

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78
THE LANGUAGE

In the far-famed Fire Worshippers, the prince of Ireland's poets denounces the unearthly purposes to be seen in the eye, as portraits of the soul's designs:—

When he hath spoken strange, awful words,
And gleams have broken from his dark eyes,
Too light to bear:
Oh! she hath feared her soul was given
To some unhallowed child of air;
Some erring spirit cast from heaven,
Like those angelic youths of old,
Who sighed for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered left the golden skies,
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes.

There is a line in his Loves of the Angels we may quote, as evincing the romance of the eye:—

'Twas Rubi, in whose mournful eye,
Slept the dim light of days gone by.

That poet of woman's love, the inimitable and immortal creature of Erin's land, says:—

The brilliant black eye
May in triumph let fly
All its darts without caring who feels 'em;
But the soft eye of blue,
Tho' it scatters wounds too,
Is much better pleased when it heals 'em.

Then again—

The blue eye half hid,
Says from under its lid,
I love and am yours, if you love me.
The black eye may say,
Come and worship my ray;
By adoring, perhaps, you may win me.

In his famed piece of "Laughing Eyes" he says:—

So holy,
Seem but given,
As splendid beacons, solely
To light to heaven.