Sterne Mill Bridge, however, crosses the river Calder, while Wordsworth tells us that the girl lost her life by falling “into the lock of a canal.”  The Calder runs parallel with the canal near Sterne Mill Bridge.  See J.R.  Tutin’s ’Wordsworth in Yorkshire’.—­Ed.

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1800.

  Oft had I heard ...

Only in the second issue of 1800.]

[Variant 2: 

1800 (2nd issue).

  She dwelt on a wild Moor 1800.

  She lived on a wide Moor MS.]

[Variant 3: 

1800.

  ... bright ...  C.]

[Variant 4: 

1800.

  He snapped ...  MS.]

[Variant 5: 

1827.

  And now they homeward turn’d, and cry’d 1800.

  And, turning homeward, now they cried 1815.]

[Variant 6: 

1800.

  The Mother turning homeward cried,
  “We never more shall meet,”
  When in the driven snow she spied MS.]

[Variant 7: 

1840.

  Then downward ... 1800.

  Half breathless ... 1827.]

[Variant 8: 

1800.

  ... and never lost
  Till ...  MS.]

[Variant 9: 

1827.

  The ... 1800.]

[Variant 10: 

1800.

  ... was ... 1802.

The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  Compare Gray’s ode, ’On a Distant Prospect of Eton College’, II. 38-9: 

  ’Still as they run they look behind,
  They hear a voice in every wind.’

Ed.]

* * * * *

RUTH

Composed 1799.—­Published 1800

[Written in Germany, 1799.  Suggested by an account I had of a wanderer in Somersetshire.—­I.F.]

Classed among the “Poems founded on the Affections” in the editions of 1815 and 1820.  In 1827 it was transferred to the “Poems of the Imagination.”—­Ed.

  When Ruth was left half desolate,
  Her Father took another Mate;
  And Ruth, not seven years old,
  A slighted child, at her own will [1]
  Went wandering over dale and hill, 5
  In thoughtless freedom, bold.

  And she had made a pipe of straw,
  And music from that pipe could draw
  Like sounds of winds and floods; [2]
  Had built a bower upon the green, 10
  As if she from her birth had been
  An infant of the woods.

  Beneath her father’s roof, alone [3]
  She seemed to live; her thoughts her own;
  Herself her own delight; 15
  Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay;
  And, passing thus the live-long day,
  She grew to woman’s height. [4]