Iris

“ The iris is the part which gives the eye its colour; it is composed of a number of fibres, the outer ones radiating towards the centre, the inner ones forming a ring round the pupil; and behind these fibres is a coat of dark pigment or colouring matter, blue in some people, grey, brown, or black in others. When the light is very strong, and would pain the nerves inside if too much entered the pupil or window of the eye, then the ring of the iris contracts so as partly to close the opening. ”

“ And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow. ”

“ When there is very little light, and it is necessary to let in as much as possible, the ring expands and the pupil grows large. The best way to observe this is to look at a cat's eyes in the dusk, and then bring her near to a bright light; for [Pg 31] the iris of a cat's eye contracts and expands much more than ours does."
Fig. 11. Section of an eye looking at a pencil. (Adapted from Kirke.)
c, c, Cornea. w, White of eye. cm, Ciliary muscle. a, a, Aqueous humour. i, i, Iris. l, l, Lens. r, r, Retina. on, Optic nerve. 1, 2, Pencil. 1 ́, 2 ́, Image of pencil on the retina. ”

“ This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes. ”

“ And all lost joys, and tears, and beauty passionately given,
Winked at by folly, skewered by the butcher, danced on and slighted,
That now spring up from death, showing their slayers the colours of Heaven?
You have burst from the ground with your joy, you are pining and bleeding,
Your scent is heavy with sorrowful love ”

“ The houses stood like rows of cripples, some paralysed, some hunch-backed and some bent with age,
They seemed at war, their chimneys threatening, their brows hung heavy in a sombre rage.
Crab-like the children crawled, while always hammering above their heads the scolding shrewish tongue;
They grew as bloodless flowers unflourishing, waxen and pale from out the dust and dung. ”

“ Wind's lassitude that sets the tired leaves shivering,
Starved yellow leaves sighing beneath the feet, a breath
Consumptive, old, and fever-red leaves quivering,
As with an earthward flutter like a ghostly butterfly
Listless they perish, wavering and hovering. ”

“ A greater pride than sits upon a throne for mere adorning,
A fiercer strength than in the gods of wood that cannot bow;
I tore my purple into rags and knelt to bear your scorning,
And I am rebel leader to a band of beggars now.
In the twilight of my love I stand and strew the bitter ashes;
They are blown into my eyes again, the fires that shone for you;
In the blushing of the sunset their ghostly fervour flashes
As they sink for everlasting in the darkness and the dew.
Your heart is as a moonstone hieroglyphed with secret letters ”

“ I mimic fortune with my tunes of ill,
Nor pipe despite her wistful mirth and trill
Of love that moves with music into Doom;
Of love that thrills with joy the graveyard cold,
And like a gay canary in a cage
Mocks at his prison, and with flippant rage
Flaunts his bright wing to fill the gloom with gold. ”

“ The flapping of our flags has made us blind!
We may not see the sacred gods of peace.
But thou dost build fanatic temples for them,
And thou dost pave the road with sanity,
And all the train of bitter ghosts adore them,
Who died to puff a monarch's vanity.
I hear thy orchestras of holy cheers,
The drum that life has snatched away from death,
And all the sighing rhythm of thy tears,
And the brave laughter of thy trumpet-breath.
Peace! But a cynic whispered in my ear
How kings like worms still wrangled for a crown
That lay amid the dust—and I could hear
A hum of money-changing in the town. ”

“ Out of the earth, the dust, the crystals of frost that bind
themselves like a tight crown over our heads.
Through the mould and the frost our hair and fingers shall
prick their spears of pallor and flame, and in the green
ardour of our up-rushing leaves the red goblets of fire
shall open, and masses of white flowers, milky as the star-sprays
that droop over Heaven, shall splash their bright
foam from the darkness, as waves that rise and break into
a fountain of blossoms. ”

“ My poems cannot laugh. They are the voice
Of birds that mourn and cry above the sea,
And this wild joy my love has brought to me
Lies dumb and knows not how it shall rejoice.
I am most weary of the petulant songs I sing,
Most tired of tunes that only learn to weep,
And long to turn my dreams from their pale sleep
Into a gentle minstrelsy with harp of silver string;
To fashion for my love one perfect verse
Symmetrically threaded by beauty word on word,
Flowing and flashing like the luted laughter of a bird
To bless the soul with music which I ravished with a curse. ”

“ Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The colour floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom.
Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content. Content!—Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! ”

“ White roses and red roses: those were beautiful colours to think of. And the cards for first place and second place and third place were beautiful colours too: pink and cream and lavender. Lavender and cream and pink roses were beautiful to think of. Perhaps a wild rose might be like those colours and he remembered the song about the wild rose blossoms on the little green place. But you could not have a green rose. But perhaps somewhere in the world you could. ”

“ The eye—which sees all objects reversed—retains the images for some time. This conclusion is proved by the results; because, the eye having gazed at light retains some impression of it. After looking (at it) there remain in the eye images of intense brightness, that make any less brilliant spot seem dark until the eye has lost the last trace of the impression of the stronger light. ”

“ The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon.
And the white rose is a dove. ”

“ Over the sod.—I do love violets:
They tell the history of woman's love;
They open with the earliest breath of spring;
Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew, and light;
And, if they perish, perish with a sigh
Delicious as that life. ”

“ "Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!" he cried; "here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name;" ”

“ millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet. ”

“ Though many a flower may win my praise,
The violet has my love;
I did not pass my childish days
In garden or in grove:
My garden was the window-seat,
Upon whose edge was set
A little vase—the fair, the sweet—
It was the violet. ”

“ With equal sweetness the commissioned hours
Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers.
The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high,
Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky;
While the dear flowers, with fond humility,
Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye
In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts,
Perfume that homage all around imparts. ”

“ The garden rose may richly bloom
In cultured soil and genial air,
To cloud the light of Fashion's room
Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair;
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew
The sweetbrier on the hillside shows
Its single leaf and fainter hue,
Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose! ”

“ It would be worth the while to look closely into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes, its dull, yellowish, greenish eye. Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green. ”

“ The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark. ”

“ Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form—large and tender and quietly thoughtful—but beautiful above all things in the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their inmost depths, and shines through all their changes of expression with the light of a purer and a better world. ”

“ new flowers in our vales are seen,
With a dazzling eye, and a fadeless green,—
They scent the breath of the dewy morn,
They feed no worm, and they hide no thorn,
But revel and glow in our balmy air,
They are flowers which Freedom hath planted there. ”

“ How fair is the Rose! what a beautiful flower!
The glory of April and May:
But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour,
And they wither and die in a day.
Yet the Rose has one powerful virtue to boast,
Above all the flowers of the field!
When its leaves are all dead and fine colours are lost,
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield! ”

“ Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; ”

“ Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? ”

“ The eyes themselves were of that baffling protean gray which is never twice the same; which runs through many shades and colorings like intershot silk in sunshine; which is gray, dark and light, and greenish gray, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,—eyes that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; ”

“ The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms, as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. ”

“ "when I came to you out of all that dust and heat and toil, I positively smelt violets at once. But not the sweet violet -- you know, that early dark violet that smells of melting snow and spring grass." ”

“ The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From the thin green leaf to the gold,
It has time to be sweet and grow old,
To triumph and leave not a leaf
For witness in winter's sight
How lovers once in the light
Would mix their breath with its breath,
And its spirit was quenched not of night,
As love is subdued not of death. ”

“ It was marvellous, a feast for the eyes, this complication of coloured tints, a perfect kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in one word, the whole palette of an enthusiastic colourist! ”

“ I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. ”

“ "SHE said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose." ”

“ With roses yellow, red, and white.
But, O my child, beware, beware!
Touch not the blossoms blowing there,
For every rose a thorn doth bear. ”

“ And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare: IX
And the wand-like lily, which lifted up ”

“ After all This woman breaks her social system up For love, so counted—the love possible To such,—and lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, though spotted from their white; ”

“ The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time;
The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime; ”

“ Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks, And mildly from its sunny nooks The blue eye of the violet looks. ”

“ And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
⁠And should I then presume?
⁠And how should I begin? ”

“ Let a thing be but a sort of punctual surprise, like the first cache of violets in March, let it be delicate, painted and gratuitous, hinting that the Creator is solely preoccupied with aesthetic considerations, and combines disparate objects simply because they look so well together, and that thing will admirably fill the role of a flower. ”

“ Up climb'd the sweet pea,
The butterfly of flowers:—I love it not,
Though every hue—and it has many tints—
Are dyed as if the sunset evening clouds
Had fallen to the earth in sudden rain,
And left their colours: purple, delicate pink,
And snowy white, are on thy wing-like leaves;
But thou art all too forward in thy bloom;
Thy blossoms are the sun's, and cling to all
That can support them into open day:
And then they die, leaving no root behind,
The hope and promise of another spring;
And no perfume, whose lingering gratitude
Remains round what upheld its summer's life. ”

“ In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white;
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
70 Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery. ”

“ But in truth there was more expression in the flower than was yet in the face. The flower expressed what God was thinking of when he made it; the face what the girl was thinking of herself. When she ceased thinking of herself then, like the flower, she would show what God was thinking of when he made her. ”