But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled thro' and chasten'd down the whole.
Speaking of Zuleika, he announces that the eye itself is the picture of the soul:—
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole—
And oh! that eye was in itself a soul!
In Leila's eyes he sees the same spirituality, and expresses the thought thus:—
Her eyes' dark charm, 'twere vain to tell,
But gaze on that of the gazelle,
It will assist thy fancy well;
As large, as languishingly dark,
But soul beam'd forth in every spark
That darted from beneath the lid,
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.
Of Lesbia's eye, he says:—
The fire of love's resistless lightning.
To the Maid of Athens he vows:—
By those lids, whose jetty fringe
Kiss the soft cheeks' blooming tinge.
In one of his sonnets to Genevra, he says, he sees contemplation and sorrow's softness, which we give in his own inimitable words:—
Thine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair,
And the wan lustre of thy features, caught
From contemplation, where serenely wrought,
Seems sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair.
And again—
For thro' thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy gentleness
Gleams, like a seraph from the sky descending.
To Caroline, he says—
Think'st thou, I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay.
