Sonnets XVI: Recollection of Wordsworth's 'Ruth'

Here are the brows of Quantock, purple-clad
With lavish heath-bloom: there the banks of Tone.
Where is that woman love-forlorn and sad,
Piping her flute of hemlock all alone?
I hear the Quantock woodman whistling home —
The sunset flush is over Dunkery: —
I fear me much that she hath ceased to roam
Up the steep path, and lie beneath the tree.
I always fancied I should hear in sooth
That music — but it sounds not: — wayward tears
Are filling in mine eyes for thee, poor Ruth —
I had forgotten all the lapse of years
Since thy deep griefs were hallowed by the pen
Of that most pure of poesy-gifted men.