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.