THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - VOL. 2 (Completed)

RUTH

Composed 1799.--Published 1800

[Written in Germany, 1799. Suggested by an account I had of a wanderer in Somersetshire.--I.F.]

Classed among the "Poems founded on the Affections" in the editions of1815 and 1820. In 1827 it was transferred to the "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed.

When Ruth was left half desolate,

Her Father took another Mate;

And Ruth, not seven years old,

A slighted child, at her own will [1]

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; [2]

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 [3]

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. [4]

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore--

A military casque he wore,

With splendid feathers drest; [A]

He brought them from the Cherokees;

The feathers nodded in the breeze,

And made a gallant crest.

From Indian blood you deem him sprung: