Lucy and Colin

Colin was betrothed to Lucy, but forsook her for a bride “thrice as rich as she.” Lucy drooped, but was present at the wedding; and when Colin saw her, “the damps of death bedewed his brow, and he died.” Both were buried in one tomb, and many a hind and plighted maid resorted thither, “to deck it with garlands and true love knots.”—T. Tickell, Lucy and Colin . ⁂ Vincent Bourne has translated this ballad into Latin verse. Through all Tickell’s works there is a strain of ballad thinking.... In this ballad [ Lucy and Colin ], he seems to have surpa ed himself. It is, perhaps, the best in our language.—Goldsmith, Beauties of English Poetry (1767).