The sweetest thing that ever grew You yet may spy the fawn at play, "To-night will be a stormy night— "That, Father! will I gladly do: The minster-clock has just struck two, At this the Father raised his hook, And snapped 3 a faggot-band; He plied his work ;-and Lucy took Not blither is the mountain roe: With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, 5 10 15 20 25 The storm came on before its time: And many a hill did Lucy climb But never reached the town. The wretched parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; 30 But there was neither sound nor sight 35 At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, 40 They wept-and, turning homeward, cried,1 -When in the snow the mother spied 2 The print of Lucy's feet. Then downwards 3 from the steep hill's edge 45 They tracked the footmarks small; And through the broken hawthorn hedge, And then an open field they crossed: 1 1827. They tracked them on, nor ever lost; And now they homeward turn'd, and cry'd 2 1800. 1800. 1815. 50 They followed from the snowy bank -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.* 55 60 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 Ichild 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 : "THE SCENE OF LUCY GRAY.-In one of the editions of Wordsworth's works the scene of this ballad is said to have been near Halifax, in Yorkshire. I do not think the poet was acquainted with the locality beyond a sight of the country in travelling through on some journey. I know of no spot where * Compare Gray's ode, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, II. 38-9— Still as they run they look behind, ED. all the little incidents mentioned in the poem would exactly fit in, and a few of the local allusions are evidently by a stranger. There is no 'minster'; the church at Halifax from time immemorial has always been known as the 'parish church,' and sometimes as the old church,' but has never been styled 'the minster.' The mountain roe,' which of course may be brought in as poetically illustrative, has not been seen on these hills for generations, and I scarcely think even the 'fawn at play' for more than a hundred years. These misapplications, it is almost unnecessary to say, do not detract from the beauty of the poetry. Some of the touches are graphically true to the neighbourhood, as, for instance, the wide moor,' the many a hill,' the steep hill's edge,' the 'long stone wall,' and the hint of the general loneliness of the region where Lucy 'no mate, no comrade, knew.' I think I can point out the exact spot-no longer a 'plank,' but a broad, safe bridge-where Lucy fell into the water. Taking a common-sense view, that she would not be sent many miles at two o'clock on a winter afternoon to the town (Halifax, of course), over so lonely a mountain moor-bearing in mind also that this moor overlooked the river, and that the river was deep and strong enough to carry the child down the current-I know only one place where such an accident could have occurred. The clue is in this verse : At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, The hill I take to be the high ridge of Greetland and Norland had lived, and, pursuing her way to Halifax, would have gone through the meadows in which stood Heath School, where young Sterne had been educated. The mill-weir at Sterne Mill Bridge was, I believe, the scene of Lucy Gray's death." Sterne Mill Bridge, however, crosses the river Calder, while Wordsworth tells us that the girl lost her life by falling "into the lock of a canal." The Calder runs parallel with the canal near Sterne Mill Bridge. See J. R. Tutin's Wordsworth in Yorkshire.-ED. RUTH Composed 1799.-Published 1800 [Written in Germany, 1799. Suggested by an account I had of a wanderer in Somersetshire.-I. F.] Classed among the "Poems founded on the Affections" in the editions of 1815 and 1820. In 1827 it was transferred to the “Poems of the Imagination.”—ED. WHEN Ruth was left half desolate, 2 And she had made a pipe of straw, 5 ΙΟ |