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 prest 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!
Farewell! and when thy days are told, Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mould
Thy corpse shall buried be;
For thee a funeral bell shall ring,
And all the congregation sing A Christian psalm for thee.
W. Wordsworth
WRITTEN IN THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH ITALY
Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep; And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave, To the haven of the grave.
Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide agony : To such a one this morn was led My bark, by soft winds piloted.
Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean With which the legion'd rooks did hail The Sun's uprise majestical :
Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then,- -as clouds of even Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky,- So their plumes of purple grain Starr'd with drops of golden rain Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail ; And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright, and clear, and still Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,- A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City! thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne among the waves, Wilt thou be,-when the sea-mew Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace-gate With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters of his path.
Noon descends around me now : 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolvéd star
Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curved horizon's bound To the point of heaven's profound, Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie Underneath; the leaves unsodden
Where the infant frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines Piercing with their trellised lines The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line Of the olive-sandall'd Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; And my spirit, which so long
Darken'd this swift stream of song,- Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky; Be it love, light, harmony, Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall, Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon
And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs : And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like wingéd winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies 'Mid remember'd agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being), Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony : Other spirits float and flee
O'er that gulf even now, perhaps,
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