“That, Father! will I gladly do: 
  ’Tis scarcely afternoon—­
  The minster-clock has just struck two,
  And yonder is the moon!” 20

  At this the Father raised his hook,
  And snapped [4] a faggot-band;
  He plied his work;—­and Lucy took
  The lantern in her hand.

  Not blither is the mountain roe:  25
  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; 30
  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 35
  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. 40

  They wept—­and, turning homeward, cried, [5]
  “In heaven we all shall meet;”
—­When in the snow the mother spied [6]
  The print of Lucy’s feet.

  Then downwards [7] from the steep hill’s edge 45
  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; 50
  They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
  And [8] to the bridge they came.

  They followed from the snowy bank
  Those [9] footmarks, one by one,
  Into the middle of the plank; 55
  And further there were [10] none!

—­Yet some maintain that to this day
  She is a living child;
  That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
  Upon the lonesome wild. 60

  O’er rough and smooth she trips along,
  And never looks behind;
  And sings a solitary song
  That whistles in the wind. [A]

This poem was illustrated by Sir George Beaumont, in a picture of some merit, which was engraved by J. C. Bromley, and published in the collected editions of 1815 and 1820.  Henry Crabb Robinson wrote in his ‘Diary’, September 11, 1816 (referring to Wordsworth): 

“He mentioned the origin of some poems.  ‘Lucy Gray’, that tender and pathetic narrative of a child lost on a common, was occasioned by the death of a child who fell into the lock of a canal.  His object was to exhibit poetically entire ‘solitude’, and he represents the child as observing the day-moon, which no town or village girl would ever notice.”

A contributor to ‘Notes and Queries’, May 12, 1883, whose signature is F., writes: