| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| As if she from her birth had been | |
| An infant of the woods. | |
| |
| Beneath her father's roof, alone | |
| She seem'd to live; her thoughts her own, | |
| Herself her own delight: | 15 |
| Pleased with herself, nor sad nor gay, | |
| She pass'd her time, and in this way | |
| Grew up to woman's height. | |
| |
| There came a youth from Georgia's shore— | |
| A military casque he wore | 20 |
| 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: | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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 | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| As quietly as spots of sky | |
| Among the evening clouds. | |
| |
| And then he said: "How sweet it were | |
| A fisher or a hunter there, | |
| In sunshine or in shade | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
| So pass'd 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 | 85 |
| 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. | 90 |
| |
| "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, | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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." | 105 |
| 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 | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| This stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, | |
| And with his dancing crest | |
| So beautiful, through savage lands | |
| Had roam'd about, with vagrant bands | |
| Of Indians in the West. | 120 |
| |
| 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, | 125 |
| And such impetuous blood. | |
| |
| Whatever in those climes he found | |
| Irregular in sight or sound | |
| Did to his mind impart | |
| A kindred impulse, seem'd allied | 130 |
| 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; | 135 |
| The breezes their own languor lent; | |
| The stars had feelings, which they sent | |
| Into those favour'd bowers. | |
| |
| Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween | |
| That sometimes there did intervene | 140 |
| Pure hopes of high intent; | |
| For passions link'd to forms so fair | |
| And stately, needs must have their share | |
| Of noble sentiment. | |
| |
| But ill he lived, much evil saw, | 145 |
| 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. | 150 |
| |
| His genius and his moral frame | |
| Were thus impair'd, and he became | |
| The slave of low desires— | |
| A man who without self-control | |
| Would seek what the degraded soul | 155 |
| Unworthily admires. | |
| |
| And yet he with no feign'd delight | |
| Had woo'd the maiden, day and night | |
| Had loved her, night and morn: | |
| What could he less than love a maid | 160 |
| Whose heart with so much nature play'd— | |
| So kind and so forlorn? | |
| |
| Sometimes most earnestly he said, | |
| "O Ruth! I have been worse than dead; | |
| False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain | 165 |
| Encompass'd me on every side | |
| When I, in confidence and pride, | |
| Had cross'd the Atlantic main. | |
| |
| "Before me shone a glorious world, | |
| Fresh as a banner bright, unfurl'd | 170 |
| To music suddenly: | |
| I look'd upon those hills and plains, | |
| And seem'd as if let loose from chains | |
| To live at liberty! | |
| |
| "No more of this—for now, by thee, | 175 |
| Dear Ruth! more happily set free, | |
| With nobler zeal I burn; | |
| My soul from darkness is releas'd, | |
| Like the whole sky when to the east | |
| The morning doth return." | 180 |
| |
| Full soon that better mind was gone; | |
| No hope, no wish remain'd, not one,— | |
| They stirr'd him now no more; | |
| New objects did new pleasure give, | |
| And once again he wish'd to live | 185 |
| 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 | 190 |
| 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; | 195 |
| And there, exulting in her wrongs, | |
| Among the music of her songs | |
| She fearfully caroused. | |
| |
| Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, | |
| Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew, | 200 |
| 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, | 205 |
| 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. | 210 |
| |
| 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 | 215 |
| 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, | 220 |
| Nor ever tax'd 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, | 225 |
| (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, | 230 |
| 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, | 235 |
| 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. | 240 |
| |
| 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 | 245 |
| The Quantock woodman hears. | |
| |
| I, too, have pass'd her on the hills, | |
| Setting her little water-mills | |
| By spouts and fountains wild— | |
| Such small machinery as she turn'd | 250 |
| Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd— | |
| A young and happy child! | |
| |
| Farewell! and when thy days are told, | |
| Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mould | |
| Thy corpse shall buried be; | 255 |
| For thee a funeral bell shall ring, | |
| And all the congregation sing | |
| A Christian psalm for thee. | |
| |
