Alfred Edward Housman

A Shropshire Lad. 15. Look not in My Eyes, for Fear

Look not in my eyes, for fear
 They mirror true the sight I see,
And there you find your face too clear
 And love it and be lost like me.
One the long nights through must lie
 Spent in star-defeated sighs,
But why should you as well as I
 Perish? gaze not in my eyes.

A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,
 One that many loved in vain,
Looked into a forest well
 And never looked away again.
There, when the turf in springtime flowers,
 With downward eye and gazes sad,
Stands amid the glancing showers
 A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.