Analysis of Look not in my eyes, for fear
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
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.
| Scheme | ABABCDCD EXEXFGFG |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 1101111 11010111 01111111 01101111 1011111 1010101 11111111 1011011 01011111 1110101 1010101 01010101 11010110 11010101 10101010 0110101 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 525 |
| Words | 104 |
| Sentences | 6 |
| Stanzas | 2 |
| Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
| Lines Amount | 16 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 200 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 31 sec read
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"Look not in my eyes, for fear" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/892/look-not-in-my-eyes%2C-for-fear>.
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