“Nay,” she said, “not lady! call me Ruth.”

With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, on Hockessin Farm, the wanderer abides as herdsman.  Soon, under the propaganda of Ruth’s soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the Delawarean society, he joins the peaceful sect amongst which he labors.  It is easier, though, to change his plural pronouns to the scriptural thou and thee of King James’s translators than to tame his heroic Viking blood, swift to boil into wrath at the show of oppression.  Such an outburst leads to a quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, where lies

  Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads,
  The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house.

Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts forth in tears and supplications among the worshipers, and is received into full harmony with them: 

  So into joy revolved the doubtful year,
  And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends
  Sheltered another member, even Lars.... 
  And all the country-side assembled there
  One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky
  The colors of transfiguration shone,
  Within the meeting-house.  There Ruth and Lars
  Together sat upon the women’s side;
  And when the peace was perfect, they arose: 
  He took her by the hand, and spake these words,
  As ordered:  “In the presence of the Lord
  And this assembly, by the hand I take
  Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her,
  Divine assistance blessing me, to be
  A loving and a faithful husband, even
  Till death shall separate us.”  Then spake Ruth
  The like sweet words; and so the twain were one.

It is not often that a liturgy has been translated into metre with less change of its form and substance.

The imbedding of a raw Northern native in this lap of repose and in this transfiguring matrimonial alliance is the grand problem of the poem.  What will Lars do, now that he is a man of peace and a Child of Light, with the burden of conscience?  In America he is a saint and an apostle.  In Europe he is known but as a proscribed murderer.  The later scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his true and tender wife, meets his old love, his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, are of a more ambitious character than any that have preceded.  The holy principles imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made to triumph, and Lars, dropping the sharp blade from his hand in the thronged arena whither he is forced once more, stands first as a laughing-stock, and then as an apostle, among his old neighbors.  It is a position full of moral force, and we find ourselves—­suddenly recovering in a degree from the calm view we had taken of the poem as a work of art—­asking how we should be so sensible of the grandeur of the situation if the poet by his skill had not brought out its peculiarity.

* * * * *

A Lady of the Last Century.  By Dr. Doran.  London:  Bentley.