Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.

William Wetmore Story 1819–1895

William Wetmore Story

122 Black Eyes

THOSE black eyes I once so praised

Now are hard and sharp and cold;

Where ’s the love that through them blazed?

Where ’s the tenderness of old?

All is gone—how utterly—

From its stem the flower has dropped.

Ah! how ugly Life can be

After Love from it is lopped!

Do we hate each other now,

While we call each other dear?

On that faultless mouth and brow

To the world does change appear?

No! your smile is just as sweet,

Just as fair your outward grace;

But I look in vain to greet

The dear ghost behind the face.

That is gone! I look on you

As a corpse from which has fled

All that once I loved and knew,

All that once I thought to wed.

’T is not your fault, ’t is not mine;

Yet I still recall a dream

Of a joy almost divine—

’T was an image in a stream.

Nothing can be sour and sharp

As a love that has decayed—

On the loose strings of the harp

Only discord can be made.

Cold this common friendship seems

After love’s auroral glow;

On the broken stem of dreams

Only disappointments grow.

Do I hate you? No! Not hate?

Hate ’s a word far too intense,

Too alive, to speak a state

Of supreme indifference.

Once, behind your eyes I thought

Worlds of love and life to see;

Now I see behind them nought

But a soulless vacancy.

Out and out I know you now;

There ’s no issue of your heart

Where my soul with you may go

To a beauty all apart,

Where the world can never come.

’T is a little narrow place—

Friendship there might find a home;

Love would die—for want of space.

So we live! The world still says,

“What expression in her eyes!

What sweet manners—graceful ways!”

How it would the world surprise

If I said, “This woman’s soul

Made for love you think, but try;

Plunge therein—how clear and shoal!—

You might drown there—so can’t I?”