And yet he with no feigned delight What could he less than love a Maid Whose heart with so much nature played? Sometimes, most earnestly, he said, "O Ruth! I have been worse than dead; It was a fresh and glorious world— I looked upon those hills and plains, But wherefore speak of this? For now, My soul from darkness is released, Like the whole sky when to the east Full soon that purer mind was gone; Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, But, when they thither came, the Youth Could never find him more. God help thee, Ruth!-Such pains she had, That she in a half year was mad, And in a prison housed; And there, with many a doleful song Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, -They all were with her in her cell; Did o'er the pebbles play. When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, But of the Vagrant none took thought; And where it liked her best she sought Her shelter and her bread. Among the fields she breathed again: And, coming to the banks of Tone, There did she rest; and dwell alone The engines of her pain, the tools : That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, And airs that gently stir The vernal leaves-she loved them still; Nor ever taxed them with the ill Which had been done to her. A Barn her winter bed supplies; But, till the warmth of summer skies And summer days is gone, (And all do in this tale agree) She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, And other home hath none, An innocent life, yet far astray! And Ruth will, long before her day, Sore aches she needs must have! but less If she is prest by want of food, And there she begs at one steep place up The horsemen-travellers ride. That oaten pipe of hers is mute, This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, I, too, have passed her on the hills Such small machinery as she turned Farewell! and when thy days are told, For thee a funeral bell shall ring, A Christian psalm for thee. XVIII.* RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. I. 1799. THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; II. All things that love the sun are out of doors; The grass is bright with rain-drops ;—on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth; And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. |