A speaker walking through a winter wood meets an old woman on the path down to the village. The landscape is bare and cold—pale sky, wind, gray figure. When she pushes back her hood, he sees only her large, sad eyes, and the sight is so painful he says they are like new graves. Their brief words are forgotten; they pass each other like strangers, he heading back into the high wood while she moves toward the fading sun. But the encounter does not leave him. At a clear pool beneath tall beeches, he sees her eyes again reflected in the water and trees. The poem captures a moment of quiet, almost unbearable human sorrow. The mood is hushed and melancholy, as if the woman’s grief has seeped into the winter landscape and stays with the speaker long after she has gone.
Eyes — Summary
A winter sky of pale blue and pale gold, Bare trees, a wind that made the wood-path cold, And one slow-moving figure, gray and old.
We met where the soft path falls from the wood Down to the village. As I came near she stood And answered when I spoke, drawing the hood
Back from her face. I saw only her eyes, Large and sad. I could not bear those eyes. They were like new graves. I could not bear her eyes.
But what we said as each passed on is gone. We looked and spoke and passed like strangers on, I to the high wood, she towards the paling sun.
And there, where the clear-heavened small pool lies, And the tallest beeches brush the bending skies, In pool and tree I saw again her eyes.