HER eyes are dim, yet also bright

And wide-awake, yet natheless dreaming,

Like moonbeams on a summer night,

Athro' a nimbus softly streaming,

Or morning's liberating light,

The blind unhappy dark redeeming.

Her eyes are bright, yet also dim,

As though with joy they had been weeping,

The lashes, broidering the brim,

Have tiny teardrops in their keeping,

And rainbows arch from rim to rim,

And through the arch stars are peeping.

O eyes so bright, so dim, so fair,

Sunlight and moonlight intertwining,

Weeping and laughter, pride and prayer,

Within your lily lids enshrining,

Your beauty fills me with despair,

You blind me, blind me with your shining.

You blind me like the lissom blade

Of sudden summer-lightning flashes,

Your witchery makes my heart afraid,

Your beauty baffles and abashes;

I seek a dewy ambuscade

In the lilied boscage of your lashes.

Yet some day, when the lightnings dart

Between the lilies of my cover,

Out of my ambush I will start

And leap the eyelids as a lover;

And secret pathways to thy heart

My fervid passion will discover.