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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=540097" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ruth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Ruth was left half desolate, <br>Her Father took another Mate; <br>And Ruth, not seven years old, <br>A slighted child, at her own will <br>Went wandering over dale and hill, <br>In thoughtless freedom, bold. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And she had made a pipe of straw, <br>And music from that pipe could draw <br>Like sounds of winds and floods; <br>Had built a bower upon the green, <br>As if she from her birth had been <br>An infant of the woods. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beneath her father's roof, alone <br>She seemed to live; her thoughts her own; <br>Herself her own delight; <br>Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay; <br>And, passing thus the live-long day, <br>She grew to woman's height. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There came a Youth from Georgia's shore-- <br>A military casque he wore, <br>With splendid feathers drest; <br>He brought them from the Cherokees; <br>The feathers nodded in the breeze, <br>And made a gallant crest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">From Indian blood you deem him sprung: <br>But no! he spake the English tongue, <br>And bore a soldier's name; <br>And, when America was free <br>From battle and from jeopardy, <br>He 'cross the ocean came. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With hues of genius on his cheek <br>In finest tones the Youth could speak: <br>--While he was yet a boy, <br>The moon, the glory of the sun, <br>And streams that murmur as they run, <br>Had been his dearest joy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He was a lovely Youth! I guess <br>The panther in the wilderness <br>Was not so fair as he; <br>And, when he chose to sport and play, <br>No dolphin ever was so gay <br>Upon the tropic sea. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Among the Indians he had fought, <br>And with him many tales he brought <br>Of pleasure and of fear; <br>Such tales as told to any maid <br>By such a Youth, in the green shade, <br>Were perilous to hear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He told of girls--a happy rout! <br>Who quit their fold with dance and shout, <br>Their pleasant Indian town, <br>To gather strawberries all day long; <br>Returning with a choral song <br>When daylight is gone down. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He spake of plants that hourly change <br>Their blossoms, through a boundless range <br>Of intermingling hues; <br>With budding, fading, faded flowers <br>They stand the wonder of the bowers <br>From morn to evening dews. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He told of the magnolia, spread <br>High as a cloud, high over head! <br>The cypress and her spire; <br>--Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam <br>Cover a hundred leagues, and seem <br>To set the hills on fire. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Youth of green savannahs spake, <br>And many an endless, endless lake, <br>With all its fairy crowds <br>Of islands, that together lie <br>As quietly as spots of sky <br>Among the evening clouds. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;How pleasant,&quot; then he said, &quot;it were <br>A fisher or a hunter there, <br>In sunshine or in shade <br>To wander with an easy mind; <br>And build a household fire, and find <br>A home in every glade! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;What days and what bright years! Ah me! <br>Our life were life indeed, with thee <br>So passed in quiet bliss, <br>And all the while,&quot; said he, &quot;to know <br>That we were in a world of woe, <br>On such an earth as this!&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then he sometimes interwove <br>Fond thoughts about a father's love <br>&quot;For there,&quot; said he, &quot;are spun <br>Around the heart such tender ties, <br>That our own children to our eyes <br>Are dearer than the sun. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me <br>My helpmate in the woods to be, <br>Our shed at night to rear; <br>Or run, my own adopted bride, <br>A sylvan huntress at my side, <br>And drive the flying deer! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Beloved Ruth!&quot;--No more he said, <br>The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed <br>A solitary tear: <br>She thought again--and did agree 0 <br>With him to sail across the sea, <br>And drive the flying deer. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;And now, as fitting is and right, <br>We in the church our faith will plight, <br>A husband and a wife.&quot; <br>Even so they did; and I may say <br>That to sweet Ruth that happy day <br>Was more than human life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Through dream and vision did she sink, <br>Delighted all the while to think <br>That on those lonesome floods, <br>And green savannahs, she should share <br>His board with lawful joy, and bear <br>His name in the wild woods. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, as you have before been told, <br>This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, <br>And, with his dancing crest, <br>So beautiful, through savage lands <br>Had roamed about, with vagrant bands <br>Of Indians in the West. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wind, the tempest roaring high, <br>The tumult of a tropic sky, <br>Might well be dangerous food <br>For him, a Youth to whom was given <br>So much of earth--so much of heaven, <br>And such impetuous blood. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whatever in those climes he found <br>Irregular in sight or sound <br>Did to his mind impart <br>A kindred impulse, seemed allied <br>To his own powers, and justified <br>The workings of his heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, <br>The beauteous forms of nature wrought, <br>Fair trees and gorgeous flowers; <br>The breezes their own languor lent; <br>The stars had feelings, which they sent <br>Into those favoured bowers. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween <br>That sometimes there did intervene <br>Pure hopes of high intent: <br>For passions linked to forms so fair <br>And stately, needs must have their share <br>Of noble sentiment. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But ill he lived, much evil saw, <br>With men to whom no better law <br>Nor better life was known; <br>Deliberately, and undeceived, <br>Those wild men's vices he received, <br>And gave them back his own. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His genius and his moral frame <br>Were thus impaired, and he became <br>The slave of low desires: <br>A Man who without self-control <br>Would seek what the degraded soul <br>Unworthily admires. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet he with no feigned delight <br>Had wooed the Maiden, day and night <br>Had loved her, night and morn: <br>What could he less than love a Maid <br>Whose heart with so much nature played? <br>So kind and so forlorn! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sometimes, most earnestly, he said, <br>&quot;O Ruth! I have been worse than dead; <br>False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain, <br>Encompassed me on every side <br>When I, in confidence and pride, <br>Had crossed the Atlantic main. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Before me shone a glorious world-- <br>Fresh as a banner bright, unfurled <br>To music suddenly: <br>I looked upon those hills and plains, <br>And seemed as if let loose from chains, <br>To live at liberty. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;No more of this; for now, by thee <br>Dear Ruth! more happily set free <br>With nobler zeal I burn; <br>My soul from darkness is released, <br>Like the whole sky when to the east <br>The morning doth return.&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Full soon that better mind was gone; <br>No hope, no wish remained, not one,-- <br>They stirred him now no more; <br>New objects did new pleasure give, <br>And once again he wished to live <br>As lawless as before. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, <br>They for the voyage were prepared, <br>And went to the sea-shore, <br>But, when they thither came the Youth <br>Deserted his poor Bride, and Ruth <br>Could never find him more. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">God help thee, Ruth!--Such pains she had, <br>That she in half a year was mad, <br>And in a prison housed; <br>And there, with many a doleful song <br>Made of wild words, her cup of wrong <br>She fearfully caroused. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, <br>Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew, 0 <br>Nor pastimes of the May; <br>--They all were with her in her cell; <br>And a clear brook with cheerful knell <br>Did o'er the pebbles play. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, <br>There came a respite to her pain; <br>She from her prison fled; <br>But of the Vagrant none took thought; <br>And where it liked her best she sought <br>Her shelter and her bread. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Among the fields she breathed again: <br>The master-current of her brain <br>Ran permanent and free; <br>And, coming to the Banks of Tone, <br>There did she rest; and dwell alone <br>Under the greenwood tree. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The engines of her pain, the tools <br>That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, <br>And airs that gently stir <br>The vernal leaves--she loved them still; <br>Nor ever taxed them with the ill <br>Which had been done to her. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Barn her 'winter' bed supplies; <br>But, till the warmth of summer skies <br>And summer days is gone, <br>(And all do in this tale agree) <br>She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, <br>And other home hath none. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">An innocent life, yet far astray! <br>And Ruth will, long before her day, <br>Be broken down and old: <br>Sore aches she needs must have! but less <br>Of mind, than body's wretchedness, <br>From damp, and rain, and cold. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If she is prest by want of food, <br>She from her dwelling in the wood <br>Repairs to a road-side; <br>And there she begs at one steep place <br>Where up and down with easy pace <br>The horsemen-travellers ride. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That oaten pipe of hers is mute, <br>Or thrown away; but with a flute <br>Her loneliness she cheers: <br>This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, <br>At evening in his homeward walk <br>The Quantock woodman hears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I, too, have passed her on the hills <br>Setting her little water-mills <br>By spouts and fountains wild-- <br>Such small machinery as she turned <br>Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, <br>A young and happy Child! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Farewell! and when thy days are told, <br>Ill-fated Ruth, in hallowed mould <br>Thy corpse shall buried be, <br>For thee a funeral bell shall ring, <br>And all the congregation sing <br>A Christian psalm for thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Wordsworth">William Wordsworth</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=540097" data-title="Ruth de William Wordsworth" data-description="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 f..."></div>
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