Poems (Odom)/Those Eyes

For works with similar titles, see Those Eyes.

THOSE EYES.

Dreaming shadows flit about me,
Making play-things on the wall,
All the household has grown silent,
There is darkness in the hall.
I can feel a spirit-presence
Standing closely by my side,
That thrills my inmost being
With a dream I thought had died.

It whispers to me mockingly
Of hopes that once were mine—
Bright gems that on the darkness
Of the present vainly shine.
Tresses brightly brown and waving,
Eyes of richest, rarest blue,
With love's own entrancing starlight
Trembling softly through the blue.

Oh, those eyes, so blue and tender,
Looking love deep into mine,
How they woo my weary spirit
Back unto the olden shrine!
Words can never paint the power
Of the fairy spell that lies
In the speaking, magic circle,
Of those deep, heart-searching eyes.

I can see them in the twilight,
And they look up with the dew;
Even in the deepest darkness
They can read my being through.
Ah! those dancing eyes of azure—
Precious jewels of the past—
Do they sparkle still as brightly
As they shone upon me last?

Or within their olden lustre
Does a shadowed sorrow sleep,
Like the faintest cloud reflected
In the bosom of the deep?
Underneath those drooping lashes
Lies a dream forever hid,
Like a shrined and sacred relic,
Shrouded 'neath a coffin lid.

But I know the restless spirit
From its sepulchre must rise,
And often veil the splendor
Of those unforgotten eyes.
I have idolized their beauty
In the by-gone happy years,
But I love them best when thinking
They are wet with memory's tears.