The Youth of green Savannahs spake,

And many an endless endless lake

With all its fairy crowds

Of islands that together lie

As quietly as spots of sky

Among the evening clouds :

And then he said "How sweet it were

A fisher or a hunter there,

A gardener in the shade,

Still wandering with an easy mind

To build a household fire and find

A home in every glade.

What days and what sweet years! Ah me!

Our life were life indeed, with thee

So pass'd 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 roam'd 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, seem'd 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 magic bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween,

That sometimes there did intervene

Pure hopes of high intent :

For passions link'd to forms so fair

And stately, needs must have their share

Of noble sentiment.

But ill he liv'd, much evil saw

With men to whom no better law

Nor better life was known;

Deliberately and undeceiv'd

Those wild men's vices he receiv'd,

And gave them back his own.

His genius and his moral frame
Were thus impair'd, and he became
The slave of low desires;

A man who without self-controul

Would seek what the degraded soul
Unworthily admires.