Famous Eyes Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Eyes poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous eyes poems. These examples illustrate what a famous eyes poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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"Golden Eyes"

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Oh Amber Eyes, oh Golden Eyes!
     Oh Eyes so softly gay!
   Wherein swift fancies fall and rise,
     Grow dark and fade away.
   Eyes like a little limpid pool
     That holds a sunset sky,
   While on its surface, calm and...Read more of this...

Sonnet 130: My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun

by William Shakespeare
 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath...Read more of this...

The Gardener XXVIII: Your Questioning Eyes

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Your questioning eyes are sad. They
seek to know my meaning as the moon
would fathom the sea.
I have bared my life before your
eyes from end to end, with nothing
hidden or held back. That is why you
know me not.
If it were only a gem, I could break
it into a hundred pieces and string
them into a chain to put on your neck.
If...Read more of this...

Mine Eyes Were Swift To Know Thee

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 MINE eyes were swift to know thee, and my heart
As swift to love. I did become at once
Thine wholly, thine unalterably, thine
In honourable service, pure intent,
Steadfast excess of love and laughing care:
And as she was, so am, and so shall be.
I knew thee helpful, knew thee true, knew thee
And Pity bedfellows: I heard thy talk
With answerable throbbings. On the...Read more of this...

Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love and they as pitying me

by William Shakespeare
 Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two...Read more of this...

To love with our eyes

by Emile Verhaeren
To love with our eyes, let us lave our gaze of the gaze of those whose glances we have crossed, by thousands, in life that is evil and enthralled.
The dawn is of flowers and dew and the mildest sifted light; soft plumes of silver and sun seem through the mists to brush and caress the mosses in the garden.
Our blue...Read more of this...

Gray Eyes

by Sara Teasdale
 It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea. 

We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;

Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea....Read more of this...

On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover

by Sylvia Plath
 Here are two pupils
whose moons of black
transform to cripples
all who look:

each lovely lady
who peers inside
take on the body
of a toad.

Within these mirrors
the world inverts:
the fond admirer's
burning darts

turn back to injure
the thrusting hand
and inflame to danger
the scarlet wound.

I sought my image
in the scorching glass,
for what fire could damage
a witch's face?

So I stared in that furnace
where beauties char
but found radiant Venus
reflected...Read more of this...

Her Eyes

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Up from the street and the crowds that went, 
Morning and midnight, to and fro, 
Still was the room where his days he spent, 
And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow. 

Year after year, with his dream shut fast, 
He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim, 
For the love that his brushes had earned...Read more of this...

On Gray Eyes

by William Strode
 Looke how the russet morne exceeds the night,
How sleekest Jett yields to the di'monds light,
So farr the glory of the gray-bright eye
Out-vyes the black in lovely majesty.
A morning mantl'd with a fleece of gray
Laughs from her brow and shewes a spotlesse day:
This di'mond-like doth not his lustre owe
To borrowed helpe, as black thinges cast a show,
It needs noe day...Read more of this...

Lady button-eyes

by Eugene Field
 When the busy day is done,
And my weary little one
Rocketh gently to and fro;
When the night winds softly blow,
And the crickets in the glen
Chirp and chirp and chirp again;
When upon the haunted green
Fairies dance around their queen -
Then from yonder misty skies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Through the murk and mist and gloam
To our quiet, cozy home,
Where to singing, sweet and low,
Rocks...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIII: Why Should Your Fair Eyes

by Michael Drayton
 Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace 
Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, 
Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place, 
Get not one glance to recompense my merit? 
So doth the plowman gaze the wand'ring star, 
And only rest contented with the light, 
That never learn'd what constellations are 
Beyond the bent of his unknowing...Read more of this...

Everywhere I cast my eyes I believe I see the sod of

by Omar Khayyam
Everywhere I cast my eyes I believe I see the sod of
Paradise and the brook of Koocer. They say the field
outside of Hell is transformed into a celestial sojourn.
Rest then in that celestial place near some celestial fair.
384...Read more of this...

Like eyes that looked on Wastes

by Emily Dickinson
 Like eyes that looked on Wastes --
Incredulous of Ought
But Blank -- and steady Wilderness --
Diversified by Night --

Just Infinites of Nought --
As far as it could see --
So looked the face I looked upon --
So looked itself -- on Me --

I offered it no Help --
Because the Cause was Mine --
The Misery a Compact
As hopeless -- as divine --

Neither...Read more of this...

The heart, like tapers, takes at beauty's eyes

by Omar Khayyam
The heart, like tapers, takes at beauty's eyes
A flame, and lives by that whereby it dies;
And beauty is a flame where hearts, like moths,
Offer themselves a burning sacrifice....Read more of this...

The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Hands cling to hands and eyes linger
on eyes: thus begins the record of our
hearts.
It is the moonlit night of March;
the sweet smell of henna is in the air;
my flute lies on the earth neglected 
and your garland of flowers is
unfinished.
This love between you and me is
simple as a song.
Your veil of the saffron colour
makes my eyes drunk.
The jasmine wreath...Read more of this...

the eyes that haunt me

by Rg Gregory
 there are eyes that refuse to exist
in the fresh air - they are invented
by the lies of paint or make their mark
in a memory that had a truth
to feed on but only by distortion

right now they sell a dream
i'd like to see the back of - they come
with a whole body rippling me apart
disturbing me with echoes of a...Read more of this...

Extinguish Thou My Eyes

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Extinguish Thou my eyes:I still can see Thee,
deprive my ears of sound:I still can hear Thee,
and without feet I still can come to Thee,
and without voice I still can call to Thee.

Sever my arms from me, I still will hold Thee
with all my heart as with a single hand,
arrest my heart, my brain will keep on beating,
and Should Thy...Read more of this...

Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool Love what dost thou to mine eyes

by William Shakespeare
 Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forgèd hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my...Read more of this...

I drown my entire soul in your two eyes

by Emile Verhaeren
I drown my entire soul in your two eyes, and the mad rapture of that frenzied soul, so that, having been steeped in their gentleness and prayer, it may be returned to me brighter and of truer temper.
O for a union that refines the being, as two golden windows in the same apse cross their differently lucent fires and interpenetrate!
I...Read more of this...

A Twinkle in Her Eyes

by Majeed Amjad
Who can say

Why her eyes,

Those playmates of the hamlet where Beauty dwells,

Why her eyes smile that way ?

 

When notes arising from her soul,

That Temple-Palace of Music,

And traipsing through the land of glad tidings,

Mirthfully smothering the tinkling of their anklets,

Tip toe up, haltingly, secretively,

To the gates of her lips,

Why her gaze sparkles and smiles ?

 

Leaping over islands of silence

And...Read more of this...

Wheneer I See Those Smiling Eyes

by Thomas Moore
 Whene'er I see those smiling eyes, 
So full of hope, and joy, and light, 
As if no cloud could ever rise, 
To dim a heaven so purely bright -- 
I sigh to think how soon that brow 
In grief may lose its every ray, 
And that light heart, so joyous now, 
Almost forget it once was gay. 

For time...Read more of this...

Look not in my eyes for fear

by A E Housman
 Look not in my eyes, for fear 
Thy mirror true the sight I see, 
And there you find your face too clear 
And love it and be lost like me. 
One the long nights through must lie 
Spent in star-defeated sighs, 
But why should you as well as I 
Perish? gaze not in my eyes. 

A Grecian lad, as...Read more of this...

My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)

by William Shakespeare
 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath...Read more of this...

Behold, where'er we turn our ravished eyes,

by Omar Khayyam
Behold, where'er we turn our ravished eyes,
Sweet verdure springs, and crystal Kausars rise;
And plains, once bare as hell, now smile as heaven:
Enjoy this heaven with maids of Paradise!...Read more of this...

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