"What days and what sweet years! Ah me!

Our life were life indeed, with thee

So passed in quiet bliss,

And all the while," said he, " to know

That we were in a world of woe,

On such an earth as this!"

And then he sometimes interwove Dear thoughts about a Father's love, "For there," said he, " are spun

Around the heart such tender ties,

That our own children to our eyes

Are dearer than the sun.

"Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me

My helpmate in the woods to be,

Our shed at night to rear;

Or run, my own adopted Bride,

A sylvan Huntress at my side,

And drive the flying deer!

"Beloved Ruth!"-No more he said.

Sweet Ruth alone at midnight shed

A solitary tear:

She thought again—and did agree

With him to sail across the sea,

And drive the flying deer.

"And now, as fitting is and right,

We in the Church our faith will plight,

A Husband and a Wife."

Even so they did; and I may say

That to sweet Ruth that happy day

Was more than human life.

Through dream and vision did she sink, Delighted all the while to think

That, on those lonesome floods,

And green savannahs, she should share His board with lawful joy, and bear His name in the wild woods.

But, as you have before been told, This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,

And with his dancing crest

So beautiful, through savage lands

Had roamed about with vagrant bands

Of Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,

The tumult of a tropic sky,

Might well be dangerous food

For him, a Youth to whom was given

So much of earth-so much of Heaven,

And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those Climes he found

Irregular in sight or sound

Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seemed allied

To his own powers, and justified

The workings of his heart.

Nor less to feed voluptuous thought

The beauteous forms of nature wrought,

Fair trees and lovely flowers;

The breezes their own languor lent;

The stars had feelings, which they sent

Into those gorgeous bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween

That sometimes there did intervene

Pure hopes of high intent;

For passions linked to forms so fair

And stately needs must have their share

Of noble sentiment.

But ill he lived, much evil saw

With men to whom no better law
Nor better life was known';

Deliberately and undeceived

Those wild men's vices he received,
And gave them back his own.

His genius and his moral frame

Were thus impaired, and he became
The slave of low desires:

A Man who without self-control

Would seek what the degraded soul
Unworthily admires.

And yet he with no feigned delight
Had wooed the maiden, day and night

Had loved her, night and morn:

What could he less than love a Maid

Whose heart with so much nature played?

So kind and so forlorn!

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.

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,

Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,

Nor pastimes of the May,