Eye beam

The eye beam darted by the imagined basilisk, for instance, was the agent of its lethal power, given the technical term extramission.

[citation needed] The exaggerated eyes of fourth-century Roman emperors like Constantine the Great (illustration) reflect this character.

In the same period John Milton wrote, of having gone blind, "When I consider how my light is spent", meaning that he had lost the capacity to generate eye beams.

[4] In Algernon Swinburne's "Atalanta in Calydon" the conception is revived for poetic purposes, enriching the poem's pagan context in the Huntsman's invocation of Artemis: Hear now and help, and lift no violent hand, But favourable and fair as thine eye's beam, Hidden and shown in heaven".

In T. S. Eliot's rose garden episode that introduces "Burnt Norton" eyebeams persist in the fusion of possible pasts and presents like unheard music: The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses Had the look of flowers that are looked at.