Bright Eyes
I look not upwards to the azure skies,Faint is their blue contrasted with thine eyes;Thine eyes shall be my heaven—the heavens aboveAre far less lovely than thine eyes of love.
The world would not be worth or hopes or sighs,Were it not brightened by thy deep blue eyes;Without those eyes, all darkness, all despair,A world of dying joy and cankering care!
Seek not my image in those starry eyes,For there that image undiscovered lies;I hide my treasures in my grief, and thenceFlow forth some rays of hope and confidence.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- starry a.
- Abounding with stars; adorned with stars.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bright Eyes is in the public domain. This text is taken from Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet, by Sir John Bowring (London: Trübner & Co., 1866), Internet Archive, the John Bowring translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sándor Petőfi, Bright Eyes, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/bright-eyes.html, id L29787.
Form and metre
Bright Eyes is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB skiesA · eyesA · aboveB · loveB
- 2 AABB sighsA · eyesA · despairB · careB
- 3 AABB eyesA · liesA · thenceB · confidenceB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I look not upwards to the azure skies, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Faint is their blue contrasted with thine eyes; | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Thine eyes shall be my heaven—the heavens above | 11 | ·····/·/˘·· |
| Are far less lovely than thine eyes of love. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The world would not be worth or hopes or sighs, | 10 | ·········· |
| Were it not brightened by thy deep blue eyes; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Without those eyes, all darkness, all despair, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| A world of dying joy and cankering care! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Seek not my image in those starry eyes, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| For there that image undiscovered lies; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| I hide my treasures in my grief, and thence | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Flow forth some rays of hope and confidence. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.