Free Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

nigh
    Those paths so dear to me.
    And now we reached the orchard-plot;
    And, as we climbed the hill,
    The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
    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.
    My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
    He raised, and never stopped:
    When down behind the cottage roof,
    At once, the bright moon dropped.
    What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
    Into a Lover’s head!
    ‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
    ‘If Lucy should be dead!’
‘SURPRISED BY JOY – IMPATIENT AS THE WIND’
    Surprised by joy – impatient as the Wind
    I turned to share the transport – Oh! with whom
    But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
    That spot which no vicissitude can find?
    Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind –
    But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
    Even for the least division of an hour,
    Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
    To my most grievous loss! – That thought’s return
    Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
    Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
    Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
    That neither present time, nor years unborn
    Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
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.
    ‘Tonight 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.
‘THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND SHOWER’
    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;
    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,
    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
    Or up the mountain springs;
    And hers shall be the breathing balm,
    And hers the silence and the calm
    Of mute insensate