# Lyrical Ballads (1800)/Volume 2/Ruth

RUTH.
RUTH.
When Ruth was left half desolate, Her Father took another Mate; And so, not seven years old, The 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 from that oaten pipe could draw All 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.
​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: Ah no! he spake the English tongue And bare 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 day-light is gone down.
​He spake of plants divine and strange That ev'ry day their blossoms change, Ten thousand lovely 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, Offlowers 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:
And then he said "How sweet it were A fisher or a hunter there, A gardener in the shade, Still wandering with an easy mind To build a household fire and find A home in every glade.
What days and what sweet years! Ah me! Our life were life indeed, with thee 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 Dear 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 Sweet Ruth alone 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 roam'd 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, seem'd 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 lovely flowers; The breezes their own languor lent, The stars had feelings which they sent Into those magic bowers.
​Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween, That sometimes there did intervene 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 liv'd, much evil saw With men to whom no better law Nor better life was known; Deliberately and undeceiv'd Those wild men's vices he receiv'd, And gave them back his own.
His genius and his moral frame Were thus impair'd, and he became The slave of low desires; A man who without self-controul Would seek what the degraded soul Unworthily admires.
​And yet he with no feign'd delight Had woo'd the Maiden, day and night Had lov'd her, night and morn; What could he less than love a Maid Whose heart with so much nature play'd So kind and so forlorn?
But now the pleasant dream 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 As 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 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 hous'd, And there, exulting in her wrongs, Among the music of her songs She fearfully carouz'd.
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 wild brook with chearful 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 breath'd again: The master-current of her brain Ran permanent and free, And to the pleasant Banks of Tone She took her way, to dwell alone Under the greenwood tree.
The engines of her grief, the tools That shap'd her sorrow, rocks and pools, And airs that gently stir The vernal leaves, she loved them still, 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, (And in this tale we all agree) She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, And other home hath none.
If she is press'd by want of food She from her dwelling in the wood Repairs to a road side, 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 pass'd her on the hills Setting her little water-mills By spouts and fountains wild, Such small machinery as she turn'd Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd A young and happy Child!
Farewel! and when thy days are told Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mold Thy corpse shall buried be, For thee a funeral bell shall ring, And all the congregation sing A Christian psalm for thee.
* ↑ Magnolia grandiflora.
* ↑ The splendid appearance of these scarlet flowers, which are scattered with such profusion over the Hills in the Southern parts of North America is frequently mentioned by Bartram in his Travels.
* ↑ The Tone is a River of Somersetshire at no great disdistance from the Quantock Hills. These Hills, which are alluded to a few Stanzas below, are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly covered with Coppice woods.