In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know [1]
Two springs that with unbroken flow
Forever pour their lucent streams
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.
Not larger than two eyes, they lie
Beneath the many-changing sky
And mirror all of life and time,
— Serene and dainty pantomime.
Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,
— Thus heaven and earth together vie [11]
Their shining depths to sanctify.
Always when the large Form of Love
Is hid by storms that rage above,
I gaze in my two springs and see
Love in his very verity.
Always when Faith with stifling stress
Of grief hath died in bitterness,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A Faith that smiles immortally.
Always when Charity and Hope, [21]
In darkness bounden, feebly grope,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A Light that sets my captives free.
Always, when Art on perverse wing
Flies where I cannot hear him sing,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A charm that brings him back to me.
When Labor faints, and Glory fails,
And coy Reward in sighs exhales,
I gaze in my two springs and see [31]
Attainment full and heavenly.
O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,
— My springs from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams
That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.
Oval and large and passion-pure
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as a dying violet-breath
Yet calmly unafraid of death;
Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves, [41]
With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves,
And home-loves and high glory-loves
And science-loves and story-loves,
And loves for all that God and man
In art and nature make or plan,
And lady-loves for spidery lace
And broideries and supple grace
And diamonds and the whole sweet round
Of littles that large life compound,
And loves for God and God's bare truth, [51]
And loves for Magdalen and Ruth,
Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete —
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,
— I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!
____ Baltimore, 1874.
Notes: My Springs
For my appreciation of this tribute to the poet's wife see `Introduction', p. xxxv [Part III]. Mr. Lanier's estimate is given in a letter of March, 1874, quoted in Mrs. Lanier's introductory note: "Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it such as I desire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day require a certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety in the face and dress of a poem, and I must win a hearing by conforming in some degree to these tyrannies, with a view to overturning them in the future. Written so, it is not nearly so beautiful as I would have it; and I therefore have another still in my heart, which I will some day write for myself."
Other tributes to his wife are: `In Absence', `Acknowledgment',
`Laus Mariae', `Special Pleading', `Evening Song', `Thou and I',
`One in Two', and `Two in One'; while she is referred to
in `The Hard Times in Elfland' and `June Dreams in January'.
It will be interesting to compare `My Springs' with other poems on the eyes.
Among the most noteworthy* may be cited Shakespeare's
"And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;"
Lodge's
"Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
Resembling heaven by every wink;
The Gods do fear whenas they glow,
And I do tremble when I think,
Heigh ho, would she were mine!"
Jonson's
"Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine," etc.;
Herrick's
"Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
Which starlike sparkle in their skies;"
Thomas Stanley's
"Oh turn away those cruel eyes,
The stars of my undoing;
Or death in such a bright disguise
May tempt a second wooing;"
Byron's
"She walks in beauty, like the night,
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies;"
H. Coleridge's
"She is not fair to outward view,
As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me.
O then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.
"But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are;"
and Wordsworth's
"Her eyes are stars of twilight fair."
—
* These may be found either in Gosse's `English Lyrics' (D. Appleton Co.,
New York) or in Palgrave's `Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics'
(Macmillan Co., New York).
—
49-50. See `Introduction', p. xlv [Part IV].
52. There is in early English literature a most interesting play entitled `Mary Magdalene': see Pollard's `English Miracle Plays' (New York), where extracts are given.
55-56. See `Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV].
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