Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/645

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WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Thy mornings show'd, thy nights conceal'd,  The bowers where Lucy play'd; And thine too is the last green field  That Lucy's eyes survey'd.
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(iv)
THREE years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower  On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make  A lady of my own.
'Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse: and with me  The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power  To kindle or restrain.
'She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn  Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm  Of mute insensate things.
'The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;  Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form  By silent sympathy.

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