A First Series of Hymns and Songs/Descriptive Songs/Lucy Gray
19. Lucy Gray
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew,
She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a cottage-door.
You, too, 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, I will 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 snapp'd 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 wander'd up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reach'd 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 overlook'd the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from the 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!
Half-breathless, from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small.
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall;
And then an open field they cross'd—
The marks were still the same;
They track them on, nor ever lost,
And to the bridge they came.
They follow'd from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank—
And further there were none!
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.