Eye colour

thumb|A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes / Brow-bound with burning gold ~ Alfred Tennyson thumb|Down-dropp’d brown eyes, so tender! ~ Thomas Ashe 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) He who wishes that his son should be born dark with red eyes, study three Vedas and attain a full term of life, should have rice cooked in water, and he and his wife should eat it with clarified butter. Then they would be able to produce such a son. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 6.4.16 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 sternFrom 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 spellIn 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 lashesIn 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 Blue 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 divinePour 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) External links Category:Anatomy