LUCY

      I

                      Strange fits of passion have I known:
                         And I will dare to tell,
                      But in the Lover's ear alone,
                         What once to me befell.

                      When she I loved looked every day
                         Fresh as a rose in June,
                      I to her cottage bent my way,
                         Beneath an evening-moon.

                      Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
                         All over the wide lea;
                      With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
                         Those paths so clear to me.

                      And now we reached the orchard-plot;
                         And, as we climbed the hill,
                      The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
                         Came near, and nearer still.

                      In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
                         Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
                      And all the while my eyes I kept
                         On the descending moon.

                      My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
                         He raised, and never stopped:
                      When down behind the cottage roof,
                         At once, the bright moon dropped.

                      What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
                         Into a Lover's head!
                      "O mercy!" to myself I cried,
                         "If Lucy should be dead!"

      II

                      She dwelt among the untrodden ways
                      Beside the springs of Dove,
                      A Maid whom there were none to praise
                      And very few to love:

                      A violet by a mossy stone
                      Half hidden from the eye!
                      — Fair as a star, when only one
                      Is shining in the sky.

                      She lived unknown, and few could know
                      When Lucy ceased to be;
                      But she is in her grave, and, oh,
                      The difference to me!

      III

                      I travelled among unknown men,
                      In lands beyond the sea;
                      Nor, England! did I know till then
                      What love I bore to thee.

                      Tis past, that melancholy dream!
                      Nor will I quit thy shore
                      A second time; for still I seem
                      To love thee more and more.

                      Among thy mountains did I feel
                      The joy of my desire;
                      And she I cherished turned her wheel
                      Beside an English fire.

                      Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
                      The bowers where Lucy played;
                      And thine too is the last green field
                      That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

      V

                      A slumber did my spirit seal;
                      I had no human fears:
                      She seemed a thing that could not feel
                      The touch of earthly years.

                      No motion has she now, no force;
                      She neither hears nor sees;
                      Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
                      With rocks, and stones, and trees.

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