____ Baltimore, 1874.
Notes: My Springs
For my appreciation of this tribute to the poet's wife see `Introduction', p. xxxv [Part III]. Mr. Lanier's estimate is given in a letter of March, 1874, quoted in Mrs. Lanier's introductory note: "Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it such as I desire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day require a certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety in the face and dress of a poem, and I must win a hearing by conforming in some degree to these tyrannies, with a view to overturning them in the future. Written so, it is not nearly so beautiful as I would have it; and I therefore have another still in my heart, which I will some day write for myself."
Other tributes to his wife are: `In Absence', `Acknowledgment',
`Laus Mariae', `Special Pleading', `Evening Song', `Thou and I',
`One in Two', and `Two in One'; while she is referred to
in `The Hard Times in Elfland' and `June Dreams in January'.
It will be interesting to compare `My Springs' with other poems on the eyes.
Among the most noteworthy* may be cited Shakespeare's
"And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;"
Lodge's
"Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
Resembling heaven by every wink;
The Gods do fear whenas they glow,
And I do tremble when I think,
Heigh ho, would she were mine!"
Jonson's
"Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine," etc.;