BLUE EYES AND BLACK EYES.
IMITATED FROM ANDALUSIAN COPLAS.
I.
Two miracles are thy blue eyes,
Haughty or tender;
Robbing our Andalusian skies
Of half their splendor.
Celestial eyes of heaven’s own hue,
Twin thrones of glory,
Whose glances every day subdue
New territory.
Blue were the waters and the skies
Of happy Eden;
And blue should be a Christian’s eyes,
Matron or maiden.
By heaven those peerless orbs of blue
To thee were given,
And all the mischief that they do
Is known in heaven.
I thought thy blue eyes beacons fair,—
O treacherous seeming;
O treacherous waves of golden hair,
That wrecked my dreaming!
Two saints the blue eyes seemed to me
That wrought my ruin:
Who would have thought that saints could be
A soul’s undoing?
II.
Black eyes are truer still, I ween,
Than any other:
Dark were the eyes of Eden’s Queen,
And Mary Mother.
The holy ones of sacred lore
All dark are painted,
Inspired prophetess of yore
And maiden sainted.
Blue eyes are cold as polished steel,
For all their splendor;
While thine a lambent flame reveal,
So warm and tender.
Dearer thine olive hue, and eyes
Of raven blackness,
Than all the azure of the skies,
And lily’s whiteness.
Thine eyebrows are a Moorish grove,
Whence issuing fleetly
Two wingèd archers lightly rove,
Wounding so sweetly.
But when their victims bleeding lie
Faintly appealing,
Two tender blackamoors draw nigh
With balm of healing.