Classic Poem

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice, —
These were the lures that led me on,
Led me on to love and to trust,
Till all my heart was fairly gone.

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice!
Ah, how tender, ah, how sweet,
Eyes and voice became to me,
In the summer hours we used to meet! —

In the summer hours, in that summer land,
When I tended the vineyards day by day.
" So let me attend you from morn till night,
Pepita, Pepita, " he used to say.

Over the far blue hills he came,
From some northern clime across the sea,
An idle stranger to spy the land,
So I looked at him, — but he looked at me

With a lover's eyes from the very first:
When he spoke to me his words were few,
But his voice swept through my heart like wind,
And the vineyard seemed to blossom anew

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice:
Day by day and hour by hour
You held me fast in your subtle thrall,
You held me fast in your subtle power!

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice,
The gentlest manner ever was worn,
And under it all a passionate will,
A brooding nature set with scorn.

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice,
Hand of steel in a velvet glove,
Together ye've wounded me full sore,
Under the name and guise of love.

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice:
I think of ye as I knew ye first;
Kind ye meant to be then, I know, —
To give me your best and not your worst

Kind ye meant to be, kind ye were,
Until God knows what rose in your mind,
What ghost of ill from your shrouded past
Made you cruel, who once were kind.

Tender eyes and a thrilling voice,
I shall never see nor hear ye more;
And never forget, though I've long forgiven,
The hurt that left me wounded and sore.