Poem by 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.

1. Additional Poems. 11a. They Shall Have Breath that Never Were
2. Last Poems. 21. The Fairies Break Their Dances
3. Last Poems. 19. In Midnights of November
4. Additional Poems. 16. Some Can Gaze and not Be Sick
5. More Poems. 18. Delight it Is in Youth and May

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