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God help thee, Ruth! -Such pains she had,
That she in half a year was mad,
And in a prison housed; 195
And there, with many a doleful song
Made of wild words, her cup of wrong
She fearfully caroused. [27]

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,
Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew, 200
Nor pastimes of the May;
--They all were with her in her cell;
And a clear brook [28] with cheerful knell
Did o'er the pebbles play.

When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, 205
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. 210

Among the fields she breathed again:
The master-current of her brain
Ran permanent and free;
And, coming to the Banks of Tone, [I]
There did she rest; and dwell alone [29] 215
Under the greenwood tree.

The engines of her pain, [30] the tools
That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools,
And airs that gently stir
The vernal leaves--she loved them still; 220
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, 225
(And all do in this tale agree) [31]
She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree,
And other home hath none.

An innocent life, yet far astray!
And Ruth will, long before her day, [32] 230
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. [33]

If she is prest by want of food, 235
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. 240

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 245
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 250
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, 255
For thee a funeral bell shall ring,
And all the congregation sing
A Christian psalm for thee.
The following extract from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the date
of the stanzas added to 'Ruth' in subsequent editions:

"Sunday, March 8th, 1802. --I stitched up 'The Pedlar,' wrote out
'Ruth', read it with the alterations. . . . William brought two new
stanzas of 'Ruth'. "

The transpositions of stanzas, and their omission from certain editions
and their subsequent re-introduction, in altered form, in later ones,
make it extremely difficult to give the textual history of 'Ruth' in
footnotes. They are even more bewildering than the changes introduced
into 'Simon Lee'. --Ed.



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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1802.

And so, not seven years old,
The slighted Child . . . 1800. ]


[Variant 2:

1836.

And from that oaten pipe could draw
All sounds .