Eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies.– Phebe, “As You Like It”
Saint Lucy
Her eyes were like the summer sea, they said,
Or like the winter ice that sheets the ground.
One claimed the autumn sky; another found
The hue as gentle as a violet's head.
At first, when but a girl, she blushed and smiled
And then she merely blushed and paid no heed
To avaricious eyes that dripped with greed
And with each glance her purity defiled.
As she grew wise the words began to burn
And bite like little whips upon her flesh.
She felt their glances strengthen, twine like mesh
And snare her till she could not twist to turn.
So when the last one’s eyes upon her cast
Familiar glances, she was all too glad
To pluck and give to him all that she had,
And be rid of the cursèd things at last.
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