Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/643

 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Lucy

^TRANCE 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 look'd every day

Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way,

Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fix'd my eye,

All over the wide lea; With quickening pace my horse drew nigh

Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reach 'd the orchard-plot;

And, as we climb'd 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 hone moved on, hoof after hoof

He raised, and never stopp'd: When down behind the cottage roof,

At once, the bright moon dropp'd.

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