Lucy Gray

Lucy Gray

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.  

"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."  

"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.