The Poetry Corner

Lilah, Alice, Hypatia

By James Thomson - (Bysshe Vanolis)

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh Who was Lilah? I am sure She was young and sweet and pure; With the forehead wise men love, Here a lucid dawn above Broad curved brows, and twilight there, Under the deep dusk of hair. And her eyes? I cannot say Whether brown, or blue, or grey: I have seen them brown, and blue, And a soft green grey, the hue Shakespeare loved (and he was wise); 'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes. So to Lilah's name above I will add two names I love, Linking with the bracket curls Three sweet names of three sweet girls:- Sunday of Saint Valentine, Eighteen hundred sixty-nine.