Ah, what to me is Homer's song
With Greek and Trojan life alive,
Virgil's that flood-like bears along
The fall of Troy, and all the strive
Of gods and men that now survive
Within its music's rise and fall—
Two eyes when one is twenty-five,
Two soft brown eyes are worth them all.
The Roman Livy, Xenophon,
Whose pages teem with fighting Greeks,
Catullus, with his amorous tone
For lovers whose sweet plaint he speaks.
He sings of soft, warm blushing cheeks,
And hearts that throb at love's sweet call
All in dead tongues the scholar seeks—
But two brown eyes are worth them all.
I toss aside my weary books,
Like Faust, and say let others strive
For money, and wear misers' looks,
And all their days and nights contrive
To add a little to their hive,
For me I sing this madrigal,
Two eyes when one is twenty-five,
Two soft brown eyes are worth them all.