“I love your eyes…”

I love your eyes, my dearest friend,
With playful sparks, burning and brightening,
That a gently raised glimpse may tend,
And, like a cloud-strewn ring of lightning,
Your graceful glance would let descend…

Still there’s a charm of greater powers:
You gaze on the ash of a zeal
That once shone through passion-kissed hours;
Your eyelashes hardly conceal
The dim embers where desire cowers.

undated, c. 1830s

Original

The following Russian text appears in the old-style orthography.