Chapter 1 — A voice by the cedar tree, In the meadow under the Hall! She is singing an air that is known to me, A passionate ballad gallant and gay, A martial song like a trumpet's call! Singing alone in the morning of life, In the happy morning of life and of May, Singing of men that in battle array, Ready in heart and ready in hand, March with banner and bugle and fife To the death, for their native land.

Strange fits of passion have I known: And I will dare to tell, But in the lover's ear alone, What once to me befell.

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!"