Eye colour



Eye colour is a polygenic phenotypic trait in many animals. In humans, the pigmentation of the iris varies from light brown to black, depending on the concentration of melanin in the iris.

Quotes

 * Brownish color and black eyes are more closely related to the sublime, blue eyes and blond color to the beautiful.
 * I Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764)

Dark eyes

 * Sweet poets of the gentle antique line, That made the hue of beauty all eterne,  And gave earth’s melodies a silver turn,— Where did you steal your art so right divine?— Sweetly ye memoried every golden twine  Of your ladies’ tresses:—teach me how to spurn  Death’s lone decaying and oblivion stern From the sweet forehead of a lady mine. The golden clusters of enamouring hair  Glow’d in poetic pictures sweetly well;— Why should not tresses dusk, that are so fair  On the live brow, have an eternal spell In poesy?—dark eyes are dearer far  Than orbs that mock the hyacinthine-bell.
 * J. H. Reynolds, The Garden of Florence (1821)


 * Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade— I see their glorious black eyes shine; ...
 * Lord Byron, "The Isles of Greece", Don Juan, Canto 3


 * Although her eyes be not of blue, Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, How far its own expressive hue  The languid azure eye surpasses!Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole  The fire that through those silken lashes In darkest glances seems to roll,  From eyes that cannot hide their flashes:	...
 * Lord Byron, "The Girl of Cadiz" (1832)


 * I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d; A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold.
 * Alfred Tennyson, "A Dream of Fair Women" (1833, 1842)


 * The Musmee has brown velvet eyes Curtain’d with satin, sleepily; You wonder if those lids would rise  The newest, strangest sight to see; But when she chatters, laughs, or plays  Kôto, biwa, or samisen, No jewel gleams with brighter rays  Than flash from those dark lashes then.
 * Sir Edwin Arnold, "The Musmee", Daily Alta California, 84:32 (1 February 1891)


 * O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes, Down-dropp’d brown eyes, so tender!
 * Thomas Ashe, "Meet We no Angels, Pansie?"


 * O dark brown eyes! O tangles of dark hair!
 * J. A. Symonds Jr., "Venice"


 * ‘Eyes so black they draw one trembling near, Brown eyes, caverns flooded with a tear, Cloudless eyes, blue eyes so windy clear—’       ‘O look at me!’
 * Thomas Sturge Moore, "A Duet", The Vinedresser, and Other Poems (1899)

Light eyes

 * And how she’d open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise,
 * Walter de la Mare, "Miss Loo", The Listeners, and Other Poems (1912)


 * So stir the fire and pour the wine, And let those sea-green eyes divine Pour their love-madness into mine:
 * Mortimer Collins, "To F. C." (1875)


 * She was a sharp-jawed, pout-lipped beauty and her eyes were green as scum.
 * Michael Moorcock, The Golden Barge (1979)