Lucy Gray

I like reading poems (writing too sometimes...but that's rare). Anyways I remember reading this one, long back in school, possibly 7th/8th class, and I remember how moved I was by this really beautiful poem by William Wordsworth. Suddenly had the yearning to read it all over again, so searched internet hard and long, coz I could not recall its name. Only had a faint idea of who the poet could possibly be and some not-so-faint idea of what the poem was all about. Anyways found it finally and here it is for you and me to enjoy :)

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LUCY GRAY
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Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night--
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon--
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"

At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work;--and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

They wept--and, turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet;"
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!

Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

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how insignificant are we!

This video from American Museum of Natural History, NY takes us on a voyage from the Himalayas on the surface of the Earth to the “can be seen by us" edge of the Universe, also known in astro jargon as the last scattering surface and shows us how insignificant are we in the Whole Wide Universe! (and yet we keep fighting and killing all the time...this part is not shown in the video...it just popped up in my head after watching this!). The video is based on real data (including from SDSS), and is not an artist’s conception.



I am just back from NY...wish I had visited AMNH...but then there are so many things to be seen there...this comes 2nd on the list if I ever go there again (1st one is the Holocaust Museum, which was unfortunately closed on Saturday).