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.