Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Wordsworth. 17701850515. 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 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!’ |