Composed 1799.—­Published 1800

[1799.  Composed in the Hartz Forest.—­I.F.]

One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”  It has no title in any edition, but from 1820 to 1836 the second page occupied by the poem is headed “Lucy.”  In the editions of 1836 to 1843 it is called “Lucy” in the list of contents.—­Ed.

  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 5
  A Lady of my own.

  “Myself will to my darling be
  Both law and impulse:  [1] and with me
  The Girl, in rock and plain,
  In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 10
  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; 15
  And her’s shall be the breathing balm,
  And her’s the silence and the calm
  Of mute insensate things.

  “The floating clouds their state shall lend
  To her; for her the willow bend; 20
  Nor shall she fail to see
  Even in the motions of the Storm
  Grace that shall mould the Maiden’s form [2]
  By silent sympathy.

  “The stars of midnight shall be dear 25
  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 [A]
  Shall pass into her face. 30

  “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 35
  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; 40
  The memory of what has been,
  And never more will be. [B]

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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1800.

  Her Teacher I myself will be,
  She is my darling;—...

MS. 1801, and the edition of 1802. 
The edition of 1805 returns to the text of 1800.]

[Variant 2: 

1800.

A reading—­printed in the edition of 1800, but replaced in its list of ‘errata’ by that given in the text—­may be quoted here,

  A beauty that shall mould her form ... 1800.]

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FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  Compare Dryden’s ‘Indian Emperor’, iv. 3.—­Ed.]