“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, 95
  And drive the flying deer!

  “Beloved Ruth!”—­No more he said. 
  The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed [13]
  A solitary tear: 
  She thought again—­and did agree 100
  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.” 105
  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 110
  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, 115
  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. 120

  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, 125
  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 130
  To his own powers, and justified
  The workings of his heart.

  Nor less, to feed voluptuous [14] thought,
  The beauteous forms of nature wrought,
  Fair trees and gorgeous [15] flowers; 135
  The breezes their own languor lent;
  The stars had feelings, which they sent
  Into those favored [16] bowers.

  Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween
  That sometimes [17] there did intervene 140
  Pure hopes of high intent: 
  For passions linked to forms so fair
  And stately, needs must have their share [18]
  Of noble sentiment.

  But ill he lived, [19] much evil saw, 145
  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. 150

  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 155
  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 160
  Whose heart with so much nature played
  So kind and so forlorn!