Father of Women and Other Poems — To O, of her Dark Eyes

Child, Stripling, Man--the sod.

Might I talk little language to thee, pore On thy last silence?

O thou city of God, My waste lies after thee, and lies before.

TO O--, OF HER DARK EYES

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.