The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,

And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash

And merciless ravage: and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,
Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being: and, unless I now
Confound my present feelings with the past;
Ere from the mutilated bower I turned
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,
I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky-
Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand

Touch for there is a spirit in the woods.

"STRANGE FITS OF PASSION HAVE I

KNOWN"

1799 1800

Written in Germany.

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's 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 orchard-plot;

And, as we climbed the hill,

The sinking moon to Lucy's cot

Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's 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 Lover's head!

"O mercy!" to myself I cried,

"If Lucy should be dead!"

"SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTROD

DEN WAYS”

1799 1800

Written in Germany.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!

- Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

"I TRAVELLED AMONG UNKNOWN

MEN"

1799 1807

Written in Germany.

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

"T is past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.