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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


FORMOSAE PUELLAE by HERBERT P. HORNE

First Line: OH! HAD YOU EYES, BUT EYES THAT MOVE
Last Line: LOVE, AT THE WINDOWS OF THE SOUL.

OH! had you eyes, but eyes that move
Within the light and realm of love,
Then would you, on the sudden, meet
A Helen walking down the street.

Here in this London 'mid the stir,
The traffic, and the burdened air,
Oh! could your eyes divine their home,
Then this were Greece, or that were Rome

The state of Dian is not gone,
The dawn she fled is yet the dawn;
Her crystal flesh the years renew
Despite her bodice, skirt, and shoe.

Nor is she only to be seen
With Juno's height, and Pallas' sheen;
The knit, all-wondrously wrought, form
Of Cytherea, soft and warm,

Yet, like her jewelled Hesperus,
Puts forth its light, and shines on us;
Whene'er she sees, and would control,
Love, at the windows of the soul.



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