"Before me shone a glorious world, Fresh as a banner bright, unfurled To music suddenly : I looked upon those hills and plains, "No more of this; for now, by thee, My soul from darkness is released, Full soon that better mind was gone; Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, But when they thither came, the Youth Could never find him more. That she in half a year was mad, And there, with many a doleful song Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, They all were with her in her cell; And a clear brook with cheerful knell When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, But of the Vagrant none took thought; Her shelter and her bread. Among the fields she breathed again: And, coming to the Banks of Tone, 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 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, And there she begs at one steep place 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, 1799. XXII. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. I. THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; The birds are singing in the distant woods; II. All things that love the sun are out of doors; The grass is bright with rain-drops; -on the moors Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. III. I was a Traveller then upon the moor; IV. But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might Of joy in minds that can no further go, In our dejection do we sink as low; To me that morning did it happen so; And fears and fancies thick upon me came; Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. V. I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; |