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

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;

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

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 stopp'd:

When down behind the cottage roof,

At once, the bright moon dropp'd.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a lover's head!

'O mercy!' to myself I cried,

'If Lucy should be dead!'