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When Ruth was
left half desolate
Her father took another mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at
her own will
Went wandering over dale and hill,
In
thoughtless freedom, bold.
And she had made a
pipe of straw,
And music from that pipe could draw
Like sounds of winds and floods;
Had built a bower
upon the green,
As if she from her birth had been
An infant of the woods.
Beneath her father's
roof, alone
She 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 free
From battle and from jeopardy,
He 'cross the
ocean came.
With hues of genius on his cheek,
In
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 guess
The
panther in the wilderness
Was not so fair as he;
And when he chose to sport and play,
No dolphin ever
was so gay
Upon the tropic sea.
Among the
Indians he had fought;
And with him many tales he
brought
Of pleasure and of fear;
Such tales as,
told to any maid
By 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 song
When daylight is gone down.
He spake of plants that
hourly change
Their blossoms, through a boundless
range
Of intermingling hues;
With budding, fading,
faded flowers,
They stand the wonder of the bowers
From morn to evening dews.
He told of the
Magnolia, spread
High as a cloud, high over head!
The cypress and her spire;
- Of flowers that with one
scarlet gleam
Cover a hundred leagues, and seem
To set the hills on fire.
The youth of green
savannahs spake,
And many an endless, endless lake
With all its fairy crowds
Of islands, that together
lie
As quietly as spots of sky
Among the
evening clouds.
`How pleasant,' then he said, `it
were
A fisher or a hunter there,
In sunshine or in
shade
To wander with an easy mind,
And build a
household fire, and find
A home in every glade!
`What days and what bright years! Ah me!
Our life
were life indeed, with thee
So passed in quiet bliss;
And all the while,' said he, `to know
That we were in
a world of woe,
On such an earth as this!'
And
then he sometimes interwove
Fond thoughts about a
father's love,
`For there,' said he, `are spun
Around the heart such tender ties,
That our own
children to our eyes
Are dearer than the sun.
`Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me
My 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!
`Beloved
Ruth!' -No more he said.
The wakeful Ruth at midnight
shed
A solitary tear:
She thought again -and did
agree
With 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 say
That to sweet Ruth that happy day
Was more than
human life.
Through dream and vision did she sink,
Delighted all the while to think
That, on those
lonesome floods
And green savannahs, she should share
His board with lawful joy, and bear
His 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 lands
Had roamed about, with vagrant bands
Of Indians
in the West.
The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky
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
Irregular
in sight or sound
Did to his mind impart
A kindred
impulse, seemed allied
To his own powers, and
justified
The 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 sent
Into those favoured
bowers.
Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween
That
sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high
intent:
For passions linked to forms so fair
And
stately, needs must have their share
Of noble
sentiment.
But ill he lived, much evil saw,
With
men to whom no better law
Nor 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 frame
Were thus impaired, and he
became
The slave of low desires:
A man who without
self-control
Would seek what the degraded soul
Unworthily admires.
And yet he with no feigned
delight
Had wooed the maiden day and night,
Had
loved her night and morn:
What could he less than
love a maid
Whose heart with so much nature played -
So 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 side
When I, in confidence
and pride,
Had crossed the Atlantic main.
`Before me shone a glorious world
Fresh as a banner
bright, unfurled
To 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
free,
With nobler zeal I burn;
My soul from
darkness is released
Like the whole sky when to the
east
The morning doth return.'
Full soon that
better mind was gone;
No hope, no wish remained, but
one, -
They stirred him now no more;
New objects
did new pleasure give,
And once again he wished to
live
As lawless as before.
Meanwhile, as thus
with him it fared,
They for the voyage were prepared,
And went to the seashore:
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, with many a
doleful song
Made of wild words, her cup of wrong
She 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 knell
Did 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
sought
Her shelter and her bread.
Among the
fields she breathed again:
The master-current of her
brain
Ran permanent and free;
And, coming to the
banks of Tone,
There did she rest; and dwell alone
Under the greenwood tree.
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,
Be
broken down and old.
Sore aches she needs must have!
but less
Of 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 wood
Repairs to a roadside;
And there she begs at one
steep place,
Where up and down with easy pace
The horsemen-travellers ride.
That oaten pipe of hers
is mute
Or thrown away: but with a flute
Her
loneliness she cheers;
This flute, made of a hemlock
stalk,
At evening in his homeward walk
The
Quantock woodman hears.
I, too, have passed her on
the hills
Setting her little water-mills
By spouts
and fountains wild -
Such small machinery as she
turned
Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,
A young and happy child!
Farewell! and when thy days
are told,
Ill-fated Ruth! in hallowed mould
Thy
corpse shall buried be;
For thee a funeral bell shall
ring,
And all the congregation sing
A Christian
psalm for thee.
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