"The Poet's Epitaph is disfigured to my taste by the common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently good, and your own."
(Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth, January 1801.)—Ed.
[1799 Contents]
[Main Contents]
"Strange fits of passion have I known"
Composed 1799.—Published 1800
[Written in Germany, 1799.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In MS. Wordsworth gave, as the title, "A Reverie," but erased it.—Ed.
The Poem
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| 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!" [Contents] | [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] | 5 10 15 20 25 |