And, on or in, or near, the brook, espy Shade upon the sunshine lying

Faint and somewhat pensively; And downward Image gaily vying

With its upright living tree

Mid silver clouds, and openings of blue sky
As soft almost and deep as her cerulean eye.
Nor less the joy with many a glance
Cast up the Stream or down at her beseeching,
To mark its eddying foam-balls prettily distrest
By ever-changing shape and want of rest;

Or watch, with mutual teaching,
The current as it plays

In flashing leaps and stealthy creeps
Adown a rocky maze;

Or note (translucent summer's happiest chance!)
In the slope-channel floored with pebbles bright,
Stones of all hues, gem emulous of gem,
So vivid that they take from keenest sight
The liquid veil that seeks not to hide them.

XVIII.

BEGGARS.

SHE had a tall man's height or more;
Her face from summer's noontide heat
No bonnet shaded, but she wore
A mantle, to her very feet
Descending with a graceful flow

And on her head a cap as white as new-fallen

snow.

Her skin was of Egyptian brown:
Haughty, as if her eye had seen
Its own light to a distance thrown,
She towered, fit person for a Queen
To lead those ancient Amazonian files;

Or ruling Bandit's wife among the Grecian isles.
Advancing, forth she stretched her hand
And begged an alms with doleful plea
That ceased not; on our English land
Such woes, I knew, could never be ;

And yet a boon I gave her, for the creature
Was beautiful to see-a weed of glorious fea-

ture:

I left her, and pursued my way;
And soon before me did espy
A pair of little Boys at play,
Chasing a crimson butterfly:

The taller followed with his hat in hand, Wreathed round with yellow flowers the gayest of the land.

The other wore a rimless crown
With leaves of laurel stuck about;
And, while both followed up and down,
Each whooping with a merry shout,
In their fraternal features I could trace
Unquestionable lines of that wild Suppliant's
face.

Yet they, so blithe of heart, seemed fit
For finest tasks of earth or air:
Wings let them have, and they might flit
Precursors to Aurora's car,

Scattering fresh flowers; though happier far, I

ween,

To hunt their fluttering game o'er rock and

level green.

They dart across my path-but lo, Each ready with a plaintive whine!

SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING,

COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER.

WHERE are they now, those wanton Boys?
For whose free range the dædal earth
Was filled with animated toys,

And implements of frolic mirth;
With tools for ready wit to guide;
And ornaments of seemlier pride,

More fresh, more bright, than princes wear;
For what one moment flung aside
Another could repair;

What good or evil have they seen
Since I their pastime witnessed here,
Their daring wiles, their sportive cheer?
I ask-but all is dark between !

They met me in a genial hour,
When universal nature breathed

As with the breath of one sweet flower,-
A time to overrule the power

Of discontent, and check the birth

Of thoughts with better thoughts at strife,
The most familiar bane of life

Since parting Innocence bequeathed
Mortality to Earth!

Soft clouds, the whitest of the year,
Sailed through the sky-the brooks ran clear;
The lambs from rock to rock were bounding;
With songs the budded groves resounding;
And to my heart are still endeared
The thoughts with which it then was cheered;
The faith which saw that gladsome pair
Walk through the fire with unsinged hair.
Or, if such faith must needs deceive-
Then, Spirits of beauty and of
grace,
Associates in that eager chase;
Ye, who within the blameless mind
Your favourite seat of empire find-
Kind Spirits! may we not believe
That they, so happy and so fair
Through your sweet influence, and the care
Of pitying Heaven, at least were free
From touch of deadly injury?

Destined, whate'er their earthly doom,
For mercy and immortal bloom!
1817.

XX. GIPSIES.

YET are they here the same unbroken knot Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!

Men, women, children, yea the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night,
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,

Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. -Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I

Have been a traveller under open sky,

Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!
The weary Sun betook himself to rest ;-
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God

The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them-but they
Regard not heroh better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;
Life which the very stars reprove
As on their silent tasks they move!
Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or, earth!
In scorn I speak not;-they are what their birth
And breeding suffer them to be;
Wild outcasts of society!

1807.

XXI.

RUTH.

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,
nd 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.

But, when they thither came, the Youth Deserted his poor Bride, and Ruth Could never find him more.

God help thee, Ruth I-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.

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.

Even such a happy Child of earth am I ;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me -
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

VI.

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good:
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at
all?

VII.

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified:

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness: But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

VIII.

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befel that, in this lonely place,
When I with these untoward thoughts had
striven,

Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven
I saw a Man before me unawares :

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey

hairs.

IX.

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and
whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

X.

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep-in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
A more than human weight upon his frame had

cast.

XI.

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they
call:

And moveth all together, if it move at all.

XII.

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now a stranger's privilege I took :
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious
day."