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!"

1799.

VIII.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye! -Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

1790.

IX.

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
"Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

£799.

X.

ERE with cold beads of midnight dew
Had mingled tears of thine,

I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst sue
To haughty Geraldine.

Immoveable by generous sighs,
She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,
An oriental chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid air.
The humblest rivulet will take
Its own wild liberties:

And, every day, the imprisoned lake
Is flowing in the breeze.

Measured by what we are and ought to be, Measured by all that, trembling, we foresee, Is not so long!

If human Life do pass away,

Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower,
If we are creatures of a winter's day;

What space hath Virgin's beauty to disclose
Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breathing rose?
Not even an hour!

The deepest grove whose foliage hid
The happiest lovers Arcady might boast
Could not the entrance of this thought forbid :
O be thou wise as they, soul-gifted Maid!
Nor rate too high what must so quickly fade,
So soon be lost.

Then shall love teach some virtuous Youth
"To draw, out of the object of his eyes,"
The while on thee they gaze in simple truth,
Hues more exalted, a refined Form,"
That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm,
And never dies.

1824.

XII.

THE FORSAKEN.

THE peace which others seek they find ;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
An amnesty for what is past;
When will my sentence be reversed?
I only pray to know the worst;
And wish as if my heart would burst.
O weary struggle! silent years
Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
And yet they leave it short, and fears
And hopes are strong and will prevail.
My calmest faith escapes not pain;
And, feeling that the hope is vain,
I think that he will come again.

XIII.

'Tis said, that some have died for love:
And here and there a church-yard grave is found
In the cold north's unhallowed ground,
Because the wretched man himself had slain
His love was such a grievous pain.

And there is one whom I five years have known;
He dwells alone

Upon Helvellyn's side:

He loved the pretty Barbara died;
And thus he makes his moan:

Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid
When thus his moan he made:

"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie.