“Get ye now down, my lord, to me! 
I’m troubled so I’m like to dee,”
  She cries, ’twixt joy and grief, O;
    “The hound is dead,
    When all is said,
  But love is past belief, O.

“Nights, nights I’ve lain your lands to see,
Forlorn and still—­and all for me,
  All for a foolish curse, O;
    Now here am I
    Come out to die—­
  To live unloved is worse, O!”

In faith, this lord, in that lone dale,
Hears now a sweeter nightingale,
  And lairs a tenderer deer, O;
    His sorrow goes
    Like mountain snows
  In waters sweet and clear, O!

What ghostly hound is this that fleet
Comes fawning to his mistress’ feet,
  And courses round his master? 
    How swiftly love
    May grief remove,
  How happy make disaster!

Now here he smells, now there he smells,
Winding his voice along the dells,
  Till grey flows up the morn, O
    Then hies again
    To Lady Jane
  No longer now forlorn, O.

Ay, as it were a bud, did break
To loveliness for her love’s sake,
  So she in beauty moving
    Rides at his hand
    Across his land,
  Beloved as well as loving.

AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING

As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine,
There sate three crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: 
Then “O!” said Lucy, in the snow, “it’s very plain to see
A witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me.”

Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow,
And plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: 
And, by and by, she comes to seven shadows in one place
Stretched black by seven poplar-trees against the sun’s bright face.

She looks to left, she looks to right, and in the midst she sees
A little pool of water clear and frozen ’neath the trees;
Then down beside its margent in the crusty snow she kneels,
And hears a magic belfry a-ringing with sweet bells.

Clear sang the faint far merry peal, then silence on the air,
And icy-still the frozen pool and poplars standing there: 
Then lo! as Lucy turned her head and looked along the snow
She sees a witch—­a witch she sees, come frisking to and fro.

Her scarlet, buckled shoes they clicked, her heels a-twinkling high;
With mistletoe her steeple-hat bobbed as she capered by;
But never a dint, or mark, or print, in the whiteness for to see,
Though danced she high, though danced she fast, though danced she lissomely.

It seemed ’twas diamonds in the air, or little flakes of frost;
It seemed ’twas golden smoke around, or sunbeams lightly tossed;
It seemed an elfin music like to reeds and warblers rose: 
“Nay!” Lucy said, “it is the wind that through the branches flows.”

And as she peeps, and as she peeps, ’tis no more one, but three,
And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree,
And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before,
And now it is not three she sees, and now it is not four—­