LUCY GRAY, OR SOLITUDE

                      Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
                      And, when I crossed the wild,
                      I chanced to see at break of day
                      The solitary child.

                      No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
                      She dwelt on a wide moor,
                      — The sweetest thing that ever grew
                      Beside a human door!

                      You yet may spy the fawn at play,
                      The hare upon the green;
                      But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
                      Will never more be seen.

                      "To-night will be a stormy night —
                      You to the town must go;
                      And take a lantern, Child, to light
                      Your mother through the snow."

                      "That, Father! will I gladly do:
                      'Tis scarcely afternoon —
                      The minster-clock has just struck two,
                      And yonder is the moon!"

                      At this the Father raised his hook,
                      And snapped a faggot-band;
                      He plied his work;-and Lucy took
                      The lantern in her hand.

                      Not blither is the mountain roe:
                      With many a wanton stroke
                      Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
                      That rises up like smoke.

                      The storm came on before its time:
                      She wandered up and down;
                      And many a hill did Lucy climb:
                      But never reached the town.

                      The wretched parents all that night
                      Went shouting far and wide;
                      But there was neither sound nor sight
                      To serve them for a guide.

                      At day-break on a hill they stood
                      That overlooked the moor;
                      And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
                      A furlong from their door.

                      They wept-and, turning homeward, cried,
                      "In heaven we all shall meet;"
                      — When in the snow the mother spied
                      The print of Lucy's feet.

                      Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
                      They tracked the footmarks small;
                      And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
                      And by the long stone-wall;

                      And then an open field they crossed:
                      The marks were still the same;
                      They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
                      And to the bridge they came.

                      They followed from the snowy bank
                      Those footmarks, one by one,
                      Into the middle of the plank;
                      And further there were none!

                      — Yet some maintain that to this day
                      She is a living child;
                      That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
                      Upon the lonesome wild.

                      O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
                      And never looks behind;
                      And sings a solitary song
                      That whistles in the wind.

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