Lucy Gray

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.