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 a half a year was mad,
And in a prison housed;

And there she sang tumultuous songs,
By recollection of her wrongs
To fearful passion roused

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
Ind o'er the pebbles play.

When Ruth three scasons thus had lain,
There came a respite to her pain;
Se 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;

Bit, 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.

*The Time is a River of Somersetshire, at no great distance "The Quantock Hille. These Hills, which are alluded to a

*tly severed with coppice woods.

He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space; Accept the gift, behold him face to face!"

"Be taught, O faithful Consort, to control Rebellious passion: for the Gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul;

Again that consummation she essayed;
But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp
As often as that eager grasp was made.
The Phantom parts- but parts to re-unite,
And re-assume his place before her sight.

Thy transports moderate; and meekly mourn When I depart, for brief is my sojourn -"

"Ah, wherefore? - Did not Hercules by force
Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb
Alcestis, a reanimated Corse,

Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom?
Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years,
And Æson stood a Youth 'mid youthful peers.
"The Gods to us are merciful-
- and they
Yet further may relent: for mightier far
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,

Is love, though oft to agony distrest,

And though his favourite seat be feeble Woman's breas

"But if thou goest, I follow -" "Peace!" he said-
She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered,
The ghastly colour from his lips had fled;
In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,
Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away - no strife to healThe past unsighed for, and the future sure; Spake of heroic arts in graver mood Revived, with finer harmony pursued;

Of all that is most beauteous - imaged there
In happier beauty: more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,

And fields invested with purpureal gleams;
Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day
Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned
That privilege by virtue.-"Ill," said he,
"The end of man's existence I discerned,
Who from ignoble games and revelry
Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight
While tears were thy best pastime-day and night

And while my youthful peers, before my eyes
(Each Hero following his peculiar bent)
Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise
By martial sports, —or, seated in the tent,
Chieftains and kings in council were detained;
What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

The wished-for wind was given:-I then revolved
The oracle, upon the silent sea;

And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; A constant interchange of growth and blight!* | An pide her puitly who so deeply tourd iter who is reason's spitz ust wit out on was in a trana of passion this fimor Welivered from the falling yoke of time and these frail elements, to rather gloves

Of blissful THE TRIADfading bowers.

SHOW me the noblest Youth of present time
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.

O Lady, worthy of earth's proudest throne!
Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit
Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown;
What living man could fear

The worst of Fortune's malice, wert thou near,
Humbling that lily stem, thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may brush from off his cheek
The too, too happy tear?

Queen and handmaid lowly!

Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy

By all that mind invents or hand prepares;
O thou, against whose lip, without its smile,
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest Nursling of a gorgeous palace
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn roof
Of Sherwood's archer, or in caves of Wallace-
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay
His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away?

Pass onward (even the glancing deer
Till we depart intrude not here ;)

That mossy slope, o'er which the woodbine throws A canopy, is smoothed for thy repose!

Glad moment is it when the throng
Of warblers in full concert strong
Strive, and not vainly strive, to rout
The lagging shower, and force coy Phoebus out,
Met by the rainbow's form divine,
Issuing from her cloudy shrine; -
So may the thrillings of the lyre
Prevail to further our desire,
While to these shades a Nymph I call,
The youngest of the lovely Three. -
"Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,
Submissive to the might of verse,
By none more deeply felt than thee!"
-I sang; and lo! from pastimes virginal

She hastens to the tents

Of nature, and the lonely elements.
Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen,
And mark her glowing cheek, her vesture green
And, as if wishful to disarm

Or to repay the potent charm,

She bears the stringed lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellised arbour's privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall,
How light her air! how delicate her glee!
So tripped the Muse, inventress of the dance;
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne!

But the ringlets of that head
Why are they ungarlanded!
Why bedeck her temples less
Than the simplest shepherdess?
Is it not a brow inviting
Choicest flowers that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in
With Idalian rose enwreathed?
But her humility is well content

With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn)
FLOWER OF THE WINDS, beneath her bosom worn,
Yet is it more for love than ornament.

Open, ye thickets! let her fly,

Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height!
For She, to all but those who love Her shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger's sight;
Though where she is beloved, and loves, as free
As bird that rifles blossoms on a tree,
Turning them inside out with arch audacity.

Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;

A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
-She stops-is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien,
O'er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birth-place in the rocky cleft
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified —
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth,
The bland composure of eternal youth!

What more changeful than the sea?
But over his great tides
Fidelity presides;

And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he. --
High is her aim as heaven above,
And wide as ether her good-will,
And, like the lowly reed, her love
Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill;
Insight as keen as frosty star

Is to her charity no bar,

Nor interrupts her frolic graces

When she is, far from these wild places, fartled by familiar faces.

one charm that manners draw,
Nature, from thy genuine law!
I from what her hand would do,

lier voice would utter, there ensue Agght untoward or unfit,

e, in benign affections pure,

1: self-forgetfulness secure,

Steds round the transient harm or vague mischance

A light unknown to tutored elegance:

Her's is not a cheek shame-stricken,,

& ber blushes are joy-flushes

And the fault (if fault it be)

y ministers to quicken Laughter-loving gaiety,

And kindle sportive wit

Leaving this Daughter of the mountains free
As if she knew that Oberon king of Faery

Had crossed her purpose with some quaint vagary,
And beard his viewless bands

Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands.

"Last of the Three, though eldest born, Eveal thyself, like pensive morn,

ched by the skylark's earliest note,
Ere lambier gladness be afloat.
But whether in the semblance drest

( cawa-or eve, fair vision of the west,
Ce with each anxious hope subdued
By woman's gentle fortitude,

Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.
-Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand
Hassed thy spirit to a peaceful stand
Ang the glories of a happier age."

-Her brow hath opened on me-see it there, Being the umbrage of her hair; &leats the crescent moon, that loves

be descried through shady groves. -Tenderest bloom is on her cheek; Wah not for a richer streak

Nr dread the depth of meditative eye;
Bt let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield
ta homage offered up in purity.-

What would'st thou more? In sunny glade
ander leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e'er diffused
Szce earth grew calm while angels mused?
y the treads, as if her foot were loth
I crash the mountain dew-drop, soon to melt
On the flowers breast; as if she felt
Tat flowers themselves, whate'er their hue,

Check with thy notes the impulse which, betrayed
By her sweet farewell looks, I longed to aid.
Here let me gaze enwrapt upon that eye,
The impregnable and awe-inspiring fort
Of contemplation, the calm port
By reason fenced from winds that sigh
Among the restless sails of vanity.

But if no wish be hers that we should part,
A humbler bliss would satisfy my heart.
Where all things are so fair,
Enough by her dear side to breathe the air
Of this Elysian weather;
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.