Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Loverīs ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchad-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucyīs cot
Came near and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Natureīs gentlest boon
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped;
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Loverīs head
'O mercy!' to myself I cried,
'If Lucy should be dead!'