A Barn her winter bed supplies; But till the warmth of summer skies (And all do in this tale agree,) She sleeps beneath the greenwood trec, 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, And there she begs at one steep place That oaten pipe of hers is mute, This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, I, too, have passed her on the hills Such small machinery as she turned Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, Farewell! and when thy days are told, For thee a funeral bell shall ring, XXII. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. 1799. I. THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; The birds are singing in the distant woods; waters. II. All things that love the sun are out of doors; The grass is bright with rain-drops; - on the moors III. I was a Traveller then upon the moor; IV. But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might Of joy in minds that can no further go, In our dejection do we sink as low; And fears and fancies thick upon me came; Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. V. I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; Far from the world I walk, and all from care; VI. My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all? VII. I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits we are deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness. VIII. Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, I saw a Man before me unawares: The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs. IX. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie By what means it could thither come, and whence; -- Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead, XI. Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood: And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, That heareth not the loud winds when they call, |