Ruth

Classed among the "Poems founded on the Affections" in the editions ofand 1820. In 1827 it was transferred to the "Poems of the

When Ruth was left half desolate,Her Father took another Mate;And Ruth, not seven years old,A slighted child, at her own willWent wandering over dale and hill,In thoughtless freedom, bold.

And she had made a pipe of straw,And music from that pipe could drawLike sounds of winds and floods;Had built a bower upon the green,As if she from her birth had beenAn infant of the woods.

Beneath her father's roof, aloneShe seemed to live; her thoughts her own;Herself her own delight;Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay;And, passing thus the live-long day,She grew to woman's height.

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore--A military casque he wore,With splendid feathers drest;He brought them from the Cherokees;The feathers nodded in the breeze,And made a gallant crest.

From Indian blood you deem him sprung:But no! he spake the English tongue,And bore a soldier's name;And, when America was freeFrom battle and from jeopardy,He 'cross the ocean came.

With hues of genius on his cheekIn finest tones the Youth could speak:--While he was yet a boy,The moon, the glory of the sun,And streams that murmur as they run,Had been his dearest joy.

He was a lovely Youth! I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not so fair as he;And, when he chose to sport and play,No dolphin ever was so gayUpon the tropic sea.

Among the Indians he had fought,And with him many tales he broughtOf pleasure and of fear;Such tales as told to any maidBy such a Youth, in the green shade,Were perilous to hear.

He told of girls--a happy rout!Who quit their fold with dance and shout,Their pleasant Indian town,To gather strawberries all day long;Returning with a choral songWhen daylight is gone down.

He spake of plants that hourly changeTheir blossoms, through a boundless rangeOf intermingling hues;With budding, fading, faded flowersThey stand the wonder of the bowersFrom morn to evening dews,He told of the magnolia, spreadHigh as a cloud, high over head!The cypress and her spire;--Of flowers that with one scarlet gleamCover a hundred leagues, and seemTo set the hills on fire.

The Youth of green savannahs spake,And many an endless, endless lake,With all its fairy crowdsOf islands, that together lieAs quietly as spots of skyAmong the evening clouds.

"How pleasant," then he said, "it wereA fisher or a hunter there,In sunshine or in shadeTo wander with an easy mind;And build a household fire, and findA home in every glade!

"What days and what bright years! Ah me!Our life were life indeed, with theeSo passed in quiet bliss,And all the while," said he, "to knowThat we were in a world of woe,On such an earth as this!"

And then he sometimes interwoveFond thoughts about a father's love:"For there," said he, "are spunAround the heart such tender ties,That our own children to our eyesAre dearer than the sun.

"Sweet Ruth! and could you go with meMy helpmate in the woods to be,Our shed at night to rear;Or run, my own adopted bride,A sylvan huntress at my side,And drive the flying deer!

"Belovèd Ruth!"--No more he said.The wakeful Ruth at midnight shedA solitary tear:She thought again--and did agreeWith him to sail across the sea,And drive the flying deer.

"And now, as fitting is and right,We in the church our faith will plight,A husband and a wife."Even so they did; and I may sayThat to sweet Ruth that happy dayWas more than human life.

Through dream and vision did she sink,Delighted all the while to thinkThat on those lonesome floods,And green savannahs, she should shareHis board with lawful joy, and bearHis name in the wild woods.

But, as you have before been told,This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,And, with his dancing crest,So beautiful, through savage landsHad roamed about, with vagrant bandsOf Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,The tumult of a tropic sky,Might well be dangerous foodFor him, a Youth to whom was givenSo much of earth--so much of heaven,And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he foundIrregular in sight or soundDid to his mind impartA kindred impulse, seemed alliedTo his own powers, and justifiedThe workings of his heart.

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought,The beauteous forms of nature wrought,Fair trees and gorgeous flowers;The breezes their own languor lent;The stars had feelings, which they sentInto those favored bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I weenThat sometimes there did intervenePure hopes of high intent:For passions linked to forms so fairAnd stately, needs must have their shareOf noble sentiment.

But ill he lived, much evil saw,With men to whom no better lawNor better life was known;Deliberately, and undeceived,Those wild men's vices he received,And gave them back his own.

His genius and his moral frameWere thus impaired, and he becameThe slave of low desires:A Man who without self-controlWould seek what the degraded soulUnworthily admires.

And yet he with no feigned delightHad wooed the Maiden, day and nightHad loved her, night and morn:What could he less than love a MaidWhose heart with so much nature playedSo kind and so forlorn!

Sometimes, most earnestly, he said,"O Ruth! I have been worse than dead;False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain,Encompassed me on every sideWhen I, in confidence and pride,Had crossed the Atlantic main.

"Before me shone a glorious world--Fresh as a banner bright, unfurledTo music suddenly:I looked upon those hills and plains,And seemed as if let loose from chains,To live at liberty."No more of this; for now, by thee,Dear Ruth! more happily set freeWith nobler zeal I burn;My soul from darkness is released,Like the whole sky when to the eastThe morning doth return."Full soon that better mind was gone;No hope, no wish remained, not one,--They stirred him now no more;New objects did new pleasure give,And once again he wished to liveAs lawless as before.

Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared,They for the voyage were prepared,And went to the sea-shore,But, when they thither came, the YouthDeserted his poor Bride, and RuthCould 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, with many a doleful songMade of wild words, her cup of wrongShe fearfully caroused.

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,Nor pastimes of the May;--They all were with her in her cell;And a clear brook with cheerful knellDid o'er the pebbles play.

When Ruth three seasons thus had lain,There came a respite to her pain;She from her prison fled;But of the Vagrant none took thought;And where it liked her best she soughtHer shelter and her bread.

Among the fields she breathed again:The master-current of her brainRan permanent and free;And, coming to the Banks of Tone,There did she rest; and dwell aloneUnder the greenwood tree.

The engines of her pain, the toolsThat shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools,And airs that gently stirThe vernal leaves--she loved them still;Nor ever taxed them with the illWhich had been done to her.

A Barn her winter bed supplies;But, till the warmth of summer skiesAnd 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,Be broken down and old:Sore aches she needs must have! but lessOf mind, than body's wretchedness,From damp, and rain, and cold.

If she is prest by want of food,She from her dwelling in the woodRepairs to a road-side;And there she begs at one steep placeWhere up and down with easy paceThe horsemen-travellers ride.

That oaten pipe of hers is mute,Or thrown away; but with a fluteHer loneliness she cheers:This flute, made of a hemlock stalk,At evening in his homeward walkThe Quantock woodman hears.

I, too, have passed her on the hillsSetting her little water-millsBy spouts and fountains wild--Such small machinery as she turnedEre she had wept, ere she had mourned,A young and happy Child!

Farewell! and when thy days are told,Ill-fated Ruth, in hallowed mouldThy corpse shall buried be,For thee a funeral bell shall ring,And all the congregation singA Christian psalm for thee.

"Sunday, March 8th, 1802.--I stitched up 'The Pedlar,' wrote out'Ruth', read it with the alterations.... William brought two newstanzas of 'Ruth'."