Poem by Alfred Edward Housman

* * *

Look not in my eyes, for fear
Thy 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. More Poems. 33. On Forelands High in Heaven
2. Last Poems. 39. When Summer’s End Is Nighing
3. More Poems. 46. The Land of Biscay
4. Last Poems. 22. The Sloe Was Lost in Flower
5. More Poems. 18. Delight it Is in Youth and May

Print

1240 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version