Nor less, to feel voluptuous thought,
The beauteous forms of Nature wrought,
Fair trees and lovely flowers;

The breeezes their own languor lent;
The stars had feelings which they sent
Into those gorgeous 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!

But now the pleasant dream was gone ;
No hope, no wish remained, not one,-

They stirred him now no more ;
New objects did new pleasure give,
And once again he wished 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 housed;

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,

Nor pastimes of the May;

-They all were with her in her cell ;

And a wild 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,"

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.

If she is pressed 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 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.

LAODAMIA.

"WITH sacrifice, before the rising morn
Performed, my slaughtered Lord have I required;
And in thick darkness, amid shades forlorn,

Him of the infernal Gods have I desired:

Celestial pity I again implore ;

Restore him to my sight-great Jove, restore!"

So speaking, and by fervent love endowed

With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands ;
While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,

Her countenance brightens-and her eye expands,
Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows,

And she expects the issue in repose.

O terror what hath she perceived? O joy!
What doth she look on ?-whom doth she behold?
Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy?

His vital presence-his corporeal mould?

It is if sense deceive her not-'tis he!

And a God leads him-wingèd Mercury!