Lover Or Stranger

Please turn your face when I am near,

     Just hide it from my sight;

Let not your eyes to mine appear,

     Your eyes of tender light.

They fill me with a sense of pain,

     More cruel than divine;

To you I hardly need explain –

     Thy never can be mine.

Speak not when I am passing by,

     Your voice I would not hear;

It fills my soul with agony,

     My loss I cannot bear.

Touch not my hand, a stranger’s part

     You must enact for aye;

I cannot trust my bursting heart,

     There is no love half-way.

August 11, 1902