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 wander'd up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reach'd 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 overlook'd the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from the 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!
Half-breathless, from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small.
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall;
And then an open field they cross'd—
The marks were still the same;
They track them on, nor ever lost,
And to the bridge they came.
They follow'd from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank—
