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Lucy

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

1073

Robert Burns [1759-1796]

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 looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,

Beneath an evening moon.

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.

1074

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!"

II

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!

III

I traveled 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.

Lucy

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

1075

IV

Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;

This child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own,

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me

The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,

And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mold the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

“The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake The work was done-
How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

V

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, or force;
She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

PROUD MAISIE

From "The Heart of Midlothian "

PROUD Maisie is in the wood,

Walking so early;

Sweet Robin sits on the bush,

Singing so rarely.

"Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?"
—“When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye."

The Maid's Lament

1077

"Who makes the bridal bed,

Birdie, say truly?"

-"The gray-headed sexton

That delves the grave duly.

"The glow-worm o'er grave and stone

Shall light thee steady;

The owl from the steeple sing

Welcome, proud lady!"

Walter Scott [1771-1832]

SONG

EARL MARCH looked on his dying child,
And, smit with grief to view her-
The youth, he cried, whom I exiled
Shall be restored to woo her.

She's at the window many an hour
His coming to discover;

And he looked up to Ellen's bower
And she looked on her lover-

But ah! so pale, he knew her not,
Though her smile on him was dwelling!

And I am then forgot-forgot?

It broke the heart of Ellen.

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs,

Her cheek is cold as ashes;

Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes

To lift their silken lashes.

Thomas Campbell [1777-1844]

THE MAID'S LAMENT

From "The Examination of Shakespeare"

I LOVED him not; and yet now he is gone

I feel I am alone.

I checked him while he spoke; yet could he speak,

Alas! I would not check.

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