"The hungry worm my sister is;
This winding-sheet I wear: 50
And cold and weary lasts our night,
Till that last morn appear.
"But hark! the cock has warn'd me hence!
A long and last adieu!
Come see, false man, how low she lies, 55
Who dy'd for love of you."
The lark sung loud; the morning smil'd,
With beams of rosy red:
Pale William shook in ev'ry limb,
And raving left his bed. 60
He hyed him to the fatal place,
Where Margaret's body lay;
And stretch'd him on the grass-green turf,
That wrapt her breathless clay:
And thrice he call'd on Margaret's name, 65
And thrice he wept full sore:
Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,
And word spake never more.
XVII.
LUCY AND COLIN
Was written by Thomas Tickell, Esq. the celebrated friend of Mr. Addison, and editor of his works. He was son of a clergyman in the north of England, had his education at Queen's college, Oxon, was under secretary to Mr. Addison and Mr. Craggs, when successively secretaries of state; and was lastly (in June, 1724) appointed secretary to the Lords Justices in Ireland, which place he held till his death in 1740.[453] He acquired Mr. Addison's patronage by a poem in praise of the opera of Rosamond, written while he was at the University.
It is a tradition in Ireland, that the song was written at Castletown, in the county of Kildare, at the request of the then Mrs. Conolly—probably on some event recent in that neighbourhood.