"That, Father! will I 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 snapped 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 wandered up and down;

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

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.

And, turning homeward, now they cried

"In Heaven we all shall meet!"

-When in the snow the Mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge

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;

They tracked them on, nor ever lost;

And to the Bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank

The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!

VOL. I.

-Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living Child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome Wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

VIII.

ALICE FELL;

Or Poverty.

THE Post-boy drove with fierce career,

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned; When suddenly I seemed to hear

A moan, a lamentable sound.

As if the wind blew many ways

I heard the sound, and more and more:

It seemed to follow with the Chaise,

And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the Boy called out;
He stopped his horses at the word;
But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,
Nor aught else like it could be heard,

The Boy then smacked his whip, and fast
The horses scampered through the rain;
And soon I heard upon the blast

The voice, and bade him halt again.

Said I, alighting on the ground,
"What can it be, this piteous moan?"
And there a little Girl I found,

Sitting behind the Chaise, alone.

"My Cloak!" the word was last and first,

And loud and bitterly she wept,

As if her very heart would burst;

And down from off her seat she leapt.

"What ails you, Child?" she sobb'd, "Look here!”

I saw it in the wheel entangled,

A weather-beaten Rag as e'er

From any garden scare-crow dangled.

"Twas twisted betwixt nave and spoke;

Her help she lent, and with good heed
Together we released the Cloak;
A wretched, wretched rag indeed!