Her eyes are sapphires set in snow
Resembling heaven by every wink.
Thomas Hood's Ruth had eyes whose "long lashes veiled a light that had
else been all too bright." Heine saw in the blue eyes of his beloved
the gates of heaven. Shakspere and Fletcher have:
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn!
When Romeo exclaims:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
... her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night,
he excels, both in fancy and in exaggeration, all the ancient poets;
but it was they who began the practice of likening eyes to bright
lights. Ovid declares (_Met._, I., 499) that Daphne's eyes shone with
a fire like that of the stars, and this has been a favorite comparison
at all times. Tibullus assures us (IV., 2) that "when Cupid wishes to
inflame the gods, he lights his torches at Sulpicia's eyes." In the
Hindoo drama _Malati and Madhava_, the writer commits the extravagance
of making Madhava declare that the white of his mistresses eyes
suffuses him as with a bath of milk!
Theocritus, Tibullus ("candor erat, qualem praefert Latonia Luna"),
Hafiz, and other Greek, Roman, and Oriental poets are fond of
comparing a girl's face or skin to the splendors of the moon, and even
the sun is none too bright to suggest her complexion. In the _Arabian
Nights_ we read: "If I look upon the heaven methinks I see the sun
fallen down to shine below, and thee whom I desire to shine in his
place." A girl may, indeed, be superior to sun and moon, as we see in
the same book: "The moon has only a few of her charms; the sun tried
to vie with her but failed. Where has the sun hips like those of the
queen of my heart?" An unanswerable argument, surely!