Lucy

 

‘Lucy’ by William Wordsworth put to music by The Divine Comedy back in the early 1990s, and which group is pretty much the efforts of Neil Hannon from Derry in Northern Ireland.

Hannon, for the sake of the song, changed around a little the order of the poem, which is in itself four shorter poems together comprising ‘Lucy’ as a whole, and the lyrics of the song below, which I’d suggest reading along in time with the song:

Lucy

The Divine Comedy

by W. Wordsworth

I travelled among unknown men, 
In lands beyond the sea; 
Nor, England did I know till then 
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream! 
Nor will I quit thy shore 
A second time; for still I seem 
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel 
The joy of my desire; 
And she I cherished turned her wheel 
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed, 
The bowers where Lucy played; 
And thine too is the last green field 
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 
Beside the springs of Dove, 
A Maid whom there were none to praise 
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone 
Half hidden from the eye 
-Fair as a star, when only one 
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know 
When Lucy ceased to be; 
But she is in her grave and, oh, 
The difference to me

A slumber did my spirit seal; 
I had no human fears; 
She seemed a thing that could not feel 
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force; 
She neither hears nor sees; 
Rolled around in earth's diurnal course, 
With rocks, and stones, and trees.