Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
Colin and Lucy
By Thomas Tickell (16851740)O
Bright Lucy was the grace,
Nor e’er did Liffy’s limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face;
Impaired her rosy hue,
Her coral lips and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.
When beating rains descend?
So drooped the slow-consuming maid,
Her life now near its end.
Take heed, ye easy fair!
Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjured swains! beware.
A bell was heard to ring,
And, shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins weeping round:
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
In early youth I die.
Was I to blame because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?
Vows due to me alone;
Nor thou, fond maid! receive his kiss,
Nor think him all thy own.
Impatient both prepare;
But know, fond maid! and know, false man!
That Lucy will be there.
This bridegroom blithe to meet;
He in his wedding trim so gay,
I in my winding sheet.”
The bridegroom blithe to meet:
He in his wedding trim so gay,
She in her winding sheet.
How were these nuptials kept?
The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.
At once his bosom swell;
The damps of death bedewed his brow:
He shook, he groaned, he fell.
The varying crimson fled,
When stretched before her rival’s corpse
She saw her husband dead.
Conveyed by trembling swains,
One mould with her, beneath one sod,
Forever he remains.
And plighted maid are seen;
With garlands gay and true-love knots
They deck the sacred green.
This hallowed spot forbear;
Remember Colin’s dreadful fate,
And fear to meet him there.