Puslapio vaizdai
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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 there, exulting in her wrongs,
Among the music of her songs

She fearfully caroused.-Edit. 1815.

The Tone is a river of Somersetshire, at no great distance from the Quantock hills. These hills are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly covered with coppice woods.

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 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 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.

THE SAILOR'S MOTHER.*

ONE morning (raw it was and wet—
A foggy day in winter time)

A Woman on the road I met,

Not old, though something past her prime : Majestic in her person, tall and straight; And like a Roman matron's was her mien and gait.

The ancient spirit is not dead;

Old times, thought I, are breathing there;
Proud was I that my country bred

Such strength, a dignity so fair:

She begged an alms, like one in poor estate; I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.

* Written at Grasmere, February, 1802. In Miss Wordsworth's journal this poem is called "The Singing Bird."

When from these lofty thoughts I woke,
"What is it," said I, "that you bear,*
Beneath the covert of your Cloak,
Protected from this cold damp air?"

She answered, soon as she the question heard, "A simple burthen, Sir, a little Singing-bird."

And, thus continuing, she said,

“I had a Son, who many a day Sailed on the seas, but he is dead; In Denmark he was cast away:

And I have travelled weary miles to see

If aught which he had owned might still remain for me.t

The bird and cage they both were his :
'Twas my Son's bird; and neat and trim
He kept it: many voyages

The singing-bird had gone with him ;

When last he sailed, he left the bird behind; From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind.

He to a fellow-lodger's care

Had left it, to be watched and fed,

And pipe its song in safety;-there ‡
I found it when my Son was dead;

And now, God help me for my little wit!

I bear it with me, Sir;—he took so much delight in it.”

* With the first word I had to spare

I said to her, "Beneath your cloak

What's that which on your arm you bear?"-Edit. 1815.

And I have travelled far as Hull to see

What clothes he might have left, or other property.-Edit. 1815.

Till he came back again, and there.-Edit. 1815.

I

THE CHILDLESS FATHER.

"UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."

-Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before,
Filled the funeral basin* at Timothy's door;
A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said;
'The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead.'
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak ;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

1800.

* In several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.

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