The black bespeaks a lovely heart,
Whose soft emotions soon depart;
The blue a steadier flame betray,
Which burns and lives beyond a day;
The black the features best disclose,
The blue my feelings all repose.
Then let each resign, without control,
The black all mind, and blue all soul.
Shakespeare has many expressions, which evince his high appreciation of this beautiful organ, and deems it fruitful in imagery; he speaks of—
The fringed curtains of thine eye.
Again, when speaking of Portia's picture, he says:—
Where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Again,—
Move those eyes?
Or, whether riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? here are severed lips,
Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends! here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh, to entrap the hearts of men
Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes,
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfinished.
Again,—
From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethian fire.
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world.
Again,—
She bids you
Rest your gentle head upon her lap;
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And in your eye-lids crown the god of sleep.
