Lyrical Ballads

sides doubts and terrors met her;
Point after point did she discuss;
And while her mind was fighting thus,
Her body still grew better.

“Alas! what is become of them?
These fears can never be endured,
I’ll to the wood.”⁠—The word scarce said,
Did Susan rise up from her bed,
As if by magic cured.

Away she posts up hill and down,
And to the wood at length is come,
She spies her Friends, she shouts a greeting;
Oh me! it is a merry meeting,
As ever was in Christendom.

The Owls have hardly sung their last,
While our four Travellers homeward wend;
The Owls have hooted all night long,
And with the Owls began my song,
And with the Owls must end.

For, while they all were travelling home,
Cried Betty, “Tell us, Johnny, do,
Where all this long night you have been,
What you have heard, what you have seen,
And, Johnny, mind you tell us true.”

Now Johnny all night long had heard
The Owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt too he the Moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o’clock till five.

And thus, to Betty’s question, he
Made answer, like a Traveller bold,
(His very words I give to you,)
“The Cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
And the Sun did shine so cold.”
—Thus answered Johnny in his glory,
And that was all his travel’s story.

Love

All Thoughts, all Passions, all Delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal Frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the Mount I lay
Beside the Ruined Tower.

The Moonshine stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the Lights of Eve;
And she was there, my Hope, my Joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the Armed Man,
The Statue of the Armed Knight:
She stood and listened to my Harp
Amid the ling’ring Light.

Few Sorrows hath she of her own,
My Hope, my Joy, my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The Songs, that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful Air,
I sang an old and moving Story⁠—
An old rude Song that fitted well
The Ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting Blush,
With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her Face.

I told her of the Knight, that wore
Upon his Shield a burning Brand;
And that for ten long Years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her, how he pin’d: and, ah!
The low, the deep, the pleading tone,
With which I sang another’s Love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting Blush,
With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her Face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
Which crazed this bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain woods
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage Den,
And sometimes from the darksome Shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny Glade,

There came, and looked him in the face,
An Angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew, it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And how, unknowing what he did,
He leapt amid a murd’rous Band,
And saved from Outrage worse than Death
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept and clasped his knees,
And how she tended him in vain⁠—
And ever strove to expiate
The Scorn, that crazed his Brain:

And that she nursed him in a Cave;
And how his Madness went away
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying Man he lay;

His dying words⁠—But when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the Ditty,
My falt’ring Voice and pausing Harp
Disturbed her Soul with Pity!

All Impulses of Soul and Sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve,
The Music, and the doleful Tale,
The rich and balmy Eve;

And Hopes, and Fears that kindle Hope,
An undistinguishable Throng!
And gentle Wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and maiden shame;
And, like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved⁠—she stepped aside;
As conscious of my Look, she stepped⁠—
Then suddenly with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful Art
That I might rather feel than see
The Swelling of her Heart.

I calmed her fears; and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin Pride.
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride!

The Mad Mother

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,
Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone;
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the green-wood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among;
And it was in the English tongue.

“Sweet Babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely Babe, do not fear!
I pray thee have no fear of me,
But, safe as in a cradle, here,
My lovely Baby! thou shalt be,
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.

A fire was once within my brain;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces one, two, three,
Hung at my breasts, and pulled at me.
But then there came a sight of joy;
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little Boy,
My little Boy of flesh and blood;
Oh joy for me that sight to see!
For he was here, and only he.

Suck, little Babe, oh suck again!
It cools my blood; it cools my brain;
Thy lips I feel them, Baby! they
Draw from my heart the pain away.
Oh! press me with thy little hand;
It loosens something at my chest;
About that tight and deadly band
I feel thy little fingers prest.
The breeze I see is in the tree;
It comes to cool my Babe and me.

Oh! love me, love me, little Boy!
Thou art thy Mother’s only joy;
And do not dread the waves below,
When o’er the sea-rock’s edge we go;
The high crag cannot work me harm,
Nor leaping torrents when they howl;
The Babe I carry on my