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Lucy Gray; or, Solitude

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Oft I heard of Lucy Gray:

And, when I crossed the wild,

I chanced to see at break of day

The solitary child.

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No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;

She dwelt on a wide moor,

– The sweetest thing that ever grew

Beside a human door!

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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.

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“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.”

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“That, Father! will I gladly do:

’Tis scarcely afternoon –

The minster-clock has just struck two,

And yonder is the moon!”

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At this the Father raised his hook,

And snapped a faggot-band;

He plied his work; – and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

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Not blither is the mountain roe:

With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,

That rises up like smoke.

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The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb:

But never reached the town.

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The wretched parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

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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.

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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.

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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;

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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.

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They followed from the snowy bank

Those footmarks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none!

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– Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

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O’er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

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Composed 1799,

Published in Lyrical Ballads (2nd edition, 1800)