Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;

With quickening pace my horse drew 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,

66

If Lucy should be dead!"

1799.

IX.

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

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

And

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!

1799.

X.

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.

1799.

XI.

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.

Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,

But scorn with scorn outbrave;

A Briton, even in love, should be
A subject, not a slave!

1826.

ΤΟ

XII.

Look at the fate of summer flowers,

Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song;
And, grieved for their brief date, confess that ours,
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.