RUTH.

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.

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.

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels.
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bel's:
In truth, the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 't was pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:

Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find short solace there, as I have found.

WORDSWORTH