Strange fits of passion have I known by William Wordsworth

 

Strange fits of passion have I known by William Wordsworth

Strange fits of passion have I known,

And I will dare to tell,

But in the lover's ear alone,

What once to me befel.

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!”