Blue Iris

Blue is the Adrian sea, and darkly blue
The Ægean; and the shafted sun thro' them,
That fishes grope to, gives the beamy hue
Rayed from her iris's deep diadem.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

Maurice Henry Hewlett was an English historical novelist, poet, and essayist. His works often blended history and romance and he was known for his vivid characterizations and settings. Among his many works, 'The Forest Lovers' and 'Richard Yea-and-Nay' are some of the best known. Hewlett was a contemporary and sometimes critic of modernist trends in literature, favoring more traditional storytelling techniques.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

Hymnia-Beatrix

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

The Chamber Idyll

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

The Old House

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

Aspetto Reale

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Black Eyes And Blue.

Blue eyes and jet
Fell out one morn,
Azure cried in a pet,
"Away, dark scorn!--
"We are brilliant and blue
"As the waves of the sea--
"And as cold and untrue
"And as changeable ye.

"We are born of the sky,
"Of a summer night,
"When the first stars lie
"In a bed of blue light;
"From the cloudy zone
"Round the setting sun,
"Like an angel's throne,
"Are our glories won."

"Pretty ladies, hold,"
Cupid said to the eyes--
For beauties that scold
"Are seldom wise;
"'Tis not colour I seek
"Love's fires to impart--
"Give me eyes that can speak
"From the depths of the heart."

Thomas Gent

Answer To A Sonnet By J.H.Reynolds

Dark eyes are dearer far
Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell.

Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, the domain
Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun,
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,
The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters: Ocean
And all its vassal streams, pools numberless,
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! gentle cousin of the forest-green,
Married to green in all the sweetest flowers
Forget-me-not, the blue-bell, and, that queen
Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers
Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great,
When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

John Keats

Eye-Service

Meseems thine eyes are two still-folded lakes
Wherein deep water reflects the guardian sky,
Searching wherein I see how Heaven is nigh
And our broad Earth at peace. So my Love takes
My soul's thin hands and, chafing them, she makes
My life's blood lusty and my life's hope high
For the strong lips and eyes of Poesy,
To hold the world well squandered for their sakes.

I looked thee full this day: thine unveiled eyes
Rayed their swift-searching magic forth; and then
I felt all strength that love can put in men
Whenas they know that loveliness is wise.
For love can be content with no less prize,
To lift us up beyond our mortal ken.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

An Imitation Of Anacreon

PAINTER in Paphos and Cythera famed
Depict, I pray, the absent Iris' face.
Thou hast not seen the lovely nymph I've named;
The better for thy peace. - Then will I trace
For thy instruction her transcendent grace.
Begin with lily white and blushing rose,
Take then the Loves and Graces... But what good
Words, idle words? for Beauty's Goddess could
By Iris be replaced, nor one suppose
The secret fraud - their grace so equal shows.
Thou at Cythera couldst, at Paphos too,
Of the same Iris Venus form anew.

Jean de La Fontaine

The Blue Bird.

From morn till noon upon the window-pane
The tempest tapped with rainy finger-nails,
And all the afternoon the blustering gales
Beat at the door with furious feet of rain.
The rose, near which the lily bloom lay slain,
Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails,
On which the sullen slug left slimy trails
Meseemed the sun would never shine again.
Then in the drench, long, loud and full of cheer,
A skyey herald tabarded in blue,
A bluebird bugled... and at once a bow
Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear
God's sapphire spaces crystallizing through
The strata'd clouds in azure tremolo.

Madison Julius Cawein

On the City Wall

Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,
The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream.

The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from the West,
The last alight with action, the first so full of rest.

Brown, that seem to hold the Past; its magic mystery,
Blue, that catch the early light, of ages yet to be.

Meet and fall and meet again, then linger, look, and smile,
Time and distance all forgotten, for a little while.

Happy on the city wall, in the warm spring weather,
All the force of Nature's laws, drawing them together.

East and West so gaily blending, for a little space,
All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' Enchanted place!

One rides down the dusty road, one watches from the wall,
Azure eyes would fain ret...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson