Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/111

103 RUTH.

When Ruth was left half desolate,

Her Father took another Mate;

And so, not seven years old,

The slighted Child at her own will

Went wandering over dale and hill

In thoughtless freedom bold.

And she had made a pipe of straw

And from that oaten pipe could draw

All sounds of winds and floods;

Had built a bower upon the green,

As if she from her birth had been

An Infant of the woods.