¶TO OLIVIA 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 darkling eyes.

Was it a century or two

This lovely darkness rose and set,

Occulted 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.

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