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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 look’d every day | 5 |
| Fresh as a rose in June, | |
| I to her cottage bent my way, | |
| Beneath an evening moon. | |
| |
| Upon the moon I fix’d my eye, | |
| All over the wide lea; | 10 |
| With quickening pace my horse drew nigh | |
| Those paths so dear to me. | |
| |
| And now we reach’d the orchard-plot; | |
| And, as we climb’d the hill, | |
| The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| My horse moved on; hoof after hoof | |
| He raised, and never stopp’d: | |
| When down behind the cottage roof, | |
| At once, the bright moon dropp’d. | |
| |
| What fond and wayward thoughts will slide | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| Is shining in the sky. | |
| |
| She lived unknown, and few could know | |
| When Lucy ceased to be; | |
| But she is in her grave, and, O! | |
| The difference to me! | 40 |
| |
III
I travell’d 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! | 45 |
| 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; | 50 |
| And she I cherish’d turn’d her wheel | |
| Beside an English fire. | |
| |
| Thy mornings show’d, thy nights conceal’d | |
| The bowers where Lucy play’d; | |
| And thine too is the last green field | 55 |
| That Lucy’s eyes survey’d. | |
| |
IV
Three years she grew in sun and shower; | |
| Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower | |
| On earth was never sown: | |
| This child I to myself will take; | 60 |
| She shall be mine, and I will make | |
| A lady of my own. | |
| |
| ‘Myself will to my darling be | |
| Both law and impulse: and with me | |
| The girl, in rock and plain, | 65 |
| In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, | |
| Shall feel an overseeing power | |
| To kindle or restrain. | |
| |
| ‘She shall be sportive as the fawn | |
| That wild with glee across the lawn | 70 |
| Or up the mountain springs; | |
| And her’s shall be the breathing balm, | |
| And her’s the silence and the calm | |
| Of mute insensate things. | |
| |
| ‘The floating clouds their state shall lend | 75 |
| To her; for her the willow bend; | |
| Nor shall she fail to see | |
| E’en in the motions of the storm | |
| Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form | |
| By silent sympathy. | 80 |
| |
| ‘The stars of midnight shall be dear | |
| To her; and she shall lean her ear | |
| In many a secret place | |
| Where rivulets dance their wayward round, | |
| And beauty born of murmuring sound | 85 |
| Shall pass into her face. | |
| |
| ‘And vital feelings of delight | |
| Shall rear her form to stately height, | |
| Her virgin bosom swell; | |
| Such thoughts to Lucy I will give | 90 |
| Where she and I together live | |
| Here in this happy dell.’ | |
| |
| Thus Nature spake—The work was done— | |
| How soon my Lucy’s race was run! | |
| She died, and left to me | 95 |
| This heath, this calm and quiet scene; | |
| The memory of what has been, | |
| And never more will be. | |
| |
V
A slumber did my spirit seal; | |
| I had no human fears: | 100 |
| She seem’d a thing that could not feel | |
| The touch of earthly years. | |
| |
| No motion has she now, no force; | |
| She neither hears nor sees; | |
| Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course | 105 |
| With rocks, and stones, and trees. | |
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