To her Eyes by Edward, Lord Herbert of Chirbury BLACK eyes if you seem dark, It is because your beams are deep, And with your soul united keep : Who could discern Enough into them, there might learn, Whence they derive that mark ; And how their power is such, That all the wonders which proceed from thence, Affecting more the mind than sense, Are not so much The works of light, as influence. As you then joined are Unto the Soul, so it again By its connexion doth pertain To that first cause, Who giving all their proper Laws, By you doth best declare How he at first being hid Within the veil of an eternal night, Did frame for us a second light, And after bid It serve for ordinary sight. His image then you are. If there be any yet who doubt What power it is that doth look out Through that your black, He will not an example lack, If he suppose that there Were grey, or hazel Glass, And that through them, though sight or soul might shine, He must yet at the last define, That beams which pass Through black, cannot be but divine. Source: The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. H. J. C. Grierson and G. Bullough, eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934. 229-230.
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