"Beloved Ruth !"-No more he said. The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed A solitary tear : She thought again-and did agree And drive the flying deer. "And now, as fitting is and right, Even so they did; and I may say Through dream and vision did she sink, But, as you have before been told, This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, And with his dancing crest So beautiful, through savage lands Had roamed about, with vagrant bands Of Indians in the West. The wind, the tempest roaring high, Might well be dangerous food For him, a Youth to whom was given So much of earth-so much of Heaven, And such impetuous blood. Whatever in those Climes he found A kindred impulse, seemed allied Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, The beauteous forms of nature wrought, Fair trees and lovely flowers; The breezes their own languor lent; The stars had feelings, which they sent Into those gorgeous bowers. Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween For passions link'd to forms so fair But ill he lived, much evil saw His genius and his moral frame A Man who without self-control And yet he with no feign'd delight What could he less than love a Maid Whose heart with so much nature play'd? So kind and so forlorn! Sometimes, most earnestly, he said, When first, in confidence and pride, "It was a fresh and glorious world, I look'd upon those hills and plains, "But wherefore speak of this? For now, Sweet Ruth! with thee, I know not how, I feel my spirit burn Even as the East when day comes forth; And, to the West, and South, and North, The morning doth return." Full soon that purer mind was gone; As lawless as before. Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, But, when they thither came, the Youth Deserted his poor Bride, and Ruth Could never find him more. "God help thee, Ruth !"-Such pains she had That she in half a year was mad, And in a prison housed; And there she sang tumultuous songs, By recollection of her wrongs, To fearful passion roused. Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, -They all were with her in her cell; When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, But of the Vagrant none took thought; Among the fields she breathed again : And, coming to the banks of Tone, (a) (a) The Tone is a river of Somersetshire, at no great dis There did she rest; and dwell alone The engines of her pain, the tools That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, The vernal leaves, she loved them still, Which had been done to her. A Barn her winter bed supplies; (And all do in this tale agree) She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, An innocent life, yet far astray ! And Ruth will, long before her day, Be broken down and old. Sore aches she needs must have! but less From damp, and rain, and cold. If she is press'd by want of food, And there she begs at one steep place, tance from the Quantock Hills. These hills, which are alluded to a few stanzas below, are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly covered with coppice woods. |