So from his pocket Peter takes
His shining horn tobacco-box;
And, in a light and careless way,
As men who with their purpose play,
Upon the lid he knocks.
Let them whose voice can stop the clouds-
Whose cunning eye can see the wind-
Tell to a curious world the cause
Why, making here a sudden pause,
The ass
turned round his head-and
grinned.
Appalling process! I have marked
The like on heath-in lonely wood,
And, verily, have seldom met
A spectacle more hideous-yet
It suited Peter's present mood.
And, grinning in his turn, his teeth
He in jocose defiance showed-
When, to confound his spiteful mirth,
A murmur, pent within the earth,
In the dead earth beneath the road,
Rolled audibly!-it swept along—
A muffled noise-a rumbling sound!
"Twas by a troop of miners made,
Plying with gunpowder their trade,
Some twenty fathoms under ground.
Small cause of dire effect !-for, surely,
If ever mortal, king or cotter,
Believed that earth was charged to quake
And yawn for his unworthy sake,
"Twas Peter Bell the potter!
But, as an oak in breathless air
Will stand though to the centre hewn ;
Or as the weakest things, if frost
Have stiffened them, maintain their post;
So he, beneath the gazing moon!
Meanwhile the pair have reached a spot
Where, sheltered by a rocky cove,
A little chapel stands alone,
With greenest ivy overgrown,
| And tufted with an ivy grove.
Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,
The building seems, wall, roof, and tower,
To bow to some transforming power,
And blend with the surrounding trees.
Deep-sighing as he passed along,
Quoth Peter, "In the shire of Fife,
'Mid such a ruin, following still
From land to land a lawless will,
I married my sixth wife!"
The unheeding ass moves slowly on,
And now is passing by an inn
Brimful of a carousing crew,
That make, with curses not a few,
An uproar and a drunken din.
I cannot well express the thoughts
Which Peter in those noises found;--
A stifling power compressed his frame,
As if confusing darkness came
Over that dull and dreary sound.
For well did Peter know the sound;
The language of those drunken joys
To him, a jovial soul, I ween,
But a few hours ago, had been
A gladsome and a welcome noise.
Now, turned adrift into the past,
He finds no solace in his course;
Like planet-stricken men of yore,
He trembles, smitten to the core
By strong compunction and remorse.
But, more than all, his heart is stung
To think of one, almost a child;
A sweet and playful Highland girl,
As light and beauteous as a squirrel,
As beauteous and as wild!
A lonely house her dwelling was,
A cottage in a heathy dell;
And she put on her gown of green,
And 1.ft her mother at sixteen,
And followed Peter Bell.
But many good and pious thoughts
Had she; and, in the kirk to pray,
Two long Scotch miles, through rain or
To kirk she had been used to go,
Twice every Sabbath-day.
And, when she followed Peter Bell
I was to lead an honest life;
For he, with tongue not used to falter,
Had pledged his troth before the altar
To love her as his wedded wife.
A mother's hope is hers;-but soon
She drooped and pined like one forlorn
From Scripture she a name did borrow
Benoni, or the child of sorrow,
She called her babe unborn.
For she had learned how Peter lived,
And took it in most grievous part;
She to the very bone was worn,
And, ere that little child was born,
Died of a broken heart.
And now the spirits of the mind
Are busy with poor Peter Bell;
Upon the rights of visual sense
Usurping, with a prevalence
More terrible than magic spell.
Close by a brake of flowering furze
(Above it shivering aspens play)
He sees an unsubstantial creature,
His very self in form and feature,
Not four yards from the broad highway:
And stretched beneath the furze he sees
The Highland girl-it is no other;
And hears her crying, as she cried,
The very moment that she died,
"My mother! oh, my mother!"
The sweat pours down from Peter's face,
So grievous is his heart's contrition;
With agony his eye-balls ache
While he beholds by the furze-brake
This miserable vision !
Calm is the well-deserving brute,
His peace, hath no offence betrayed ;-
But now, while down that slope he wends,
A voice to Peter's ear ascends,
Resounding from the woody glade:
Though clamorous as a hunter's horn
Re-echoed from a naked rock,
Tis from the tabernacle-List!
The very word was plainly heard,
Heard plainly by the wretched mother-
Her joy was like a deep affright;
And forth she rushed into the light,
And saw it was another!
And instantly, upon the earth,
Beneath the full moon shining bright,
Close to the ass's feet she fell;
At the same moment Peter Bell
Dismounts in most unhappy plight.
What could he do?-The woman lay
Breathless and motionless; the mind
Of Peter sadly was confused;
But, though to such demands unused,
And helpless almost as the blind,
He raised her up, and while he held
Her body propped against his knee,
The woman waked-and when she spied
The poor ass standing by her side
She moaned most bitterly.
Beside the woman Peter stands :
His heart is opening more and more;
A holy sense pervades his mind;
He feels what he for human kind
Had never felt before.
At length, by Peter's arm sustained,
The woman rises from the ground-
"Oh, mercy! something must be done,-
My little Rachel, you must run,-
Some willing neighbour must be found.
Make haste-my little Rachel-do,
The first you meet with-bid him come,—
Ask him to lend his horse to-night-
And this good man, whom Heaven requite,
Will help to bring the body home."
Away goes Rachel, weeping loud;-
An infant, waked by her distress,
Makes in the house a piteous cry,
And Peter hears the mother sigh,
"Seven are they, and all fatherless!"
And now is Peter taught to feel
That man's heart is a holy thing;
And Nature, through a world of death,
Breathes into him a second breath,
More searching than the breath of spring.
"Oh! God be praised-my heart's at ease- Upon a stone the woman sits
For he is dead-I know it well!"
At this she wept a bitter flood;
And, in the best way that he could,
His tale did Peter tell.
He trembles--he is pale as death-
His voice is weak with perturbation-
He turns aside his head-he pauses;
Poor Peter from a thousand causes
Is crippled sore in his narration.
At length she learned how he espied
The ass in that small meadow ground;
And that her husband now lay dead,
Beside that luckless river's bed
In which he had been drowned.
In agony of silent grief
From his own thoughts did Peter start;
He longs to press her to his heart,
From love that cannot find relief.
But roused, as if through every limb
Had past a sudden shock of dread,
The mother o'er the threshold flies,
And up the cottage stairs she hies,
And to the pillow gives her burning head.
And Peter turns his steps aside
Into a shade of darksome trees,
Where he sits down, he knows not how,
With his hands pressed against his brow,
His elbows on his tremulous knees.
There, self-involved, does Peter sit
Until no sign of life he makes,
As if his mind were sinking deep
Through years that have been long asleep!
The trance is past away-he wakes,-
He lifts his head-and sees the ass
Yet standing in the clear moonshine.
"When shall I be as good as thou?
Oh! would, poor beast, that I had now
A heart but half as good as thine!"
But he who deviously hath sought
His father through the lonesome woods,
Hath sought, proclaiming to the ear
Of night his inward grief and fear—
He comes-escaped from fields and floods;-
With weary pace is drawing nigh-
He sees the ass-and nothing living
Had ever such a fit of joy
As hath this little orphan boy,
For he has no misgiving!
Towards the gentle ass he springs,
And up about his neck he climbs ;
In loving words he talks to him,
He kisses, kisses face and limb,-
He kisses him a thousand times!
This Peter sees, while in the shade
He stood beside the cottage door :
And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild,
Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child, "Oh! God, I can endure no more!'
Here ends my tale :-for in a trice Arrived a neighbour with his horse; Peter went forth with him straightway; And, with due care, ere break of day Together they brought back the corse.
And many years did this poor ass,
Whom once it was my luck to see
Cropping the shrubs of Leming Lane,
Help by his labour to maintain
The widow and her family.
And Peter Bell, who, till that night, Had been the wildest of his clan, Forsook his crimes, repressed his folly, And after ten months' melancholy, Became a good and honest man.
And hermits are contented with their cells; And students with their pensive citadels : Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth, the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
That grief for which the senses still supply | And that inspiring hill which "did divide
Fresh food; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends!
restrain
Those busy cares that would allay my pain: Oh! leave me to myself; nor let me feel The officious touch that makes me droop again.
Into two ample horns his forehead wide," Shines with poetic radiance as of old; While not an English mountain we behold By the celestial muses glorified. [crowds: Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in What was the great Parnassus' self to thee, Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty Our British hill is fairer far: he shrouds His double front among Atlantic clouds, And pours forth streams more sweet than Častaly.
THERE is a little unpretending rill
Of limpid water, humbler far than aught That ever among men or naiads sought Notice or name !-It quivers down the hill, Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will; [brought
Yet to my mind this scanty stream is Oftener than Ganges or the Nile, a thought Of private recollection sweet and still! Months perish with their moons ;year treads on year;
But, faithful Emma, thou with me canst
[pear,
That, while ten thousand pleasures disap-
And flies their memory fast almost as they,
The immortal spirit of one happy day
Lingers beside that rill, in vision clear.
HER only pilot the soft breeze the boat
Lingers, but fancy is well satisfied; [side,
With keen-eyed hope, with memory, at her
And the glad muse at liberty to note
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along; regardless who shall chide
If the heavens smile, and leave us free to
glide,
Happy associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, fancy and the muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!
While here sits one whose brightness owes
its hues
Toflesh and blood; no goddess from above, No fleeting spirit, but my own true love?
THE fairest, brightest hues of ether fade : The sweetest notes must terminate and die; O friend! thy flute has breathed a harmony Softly resounded through this rocky glade; Such strains of rapture as the genius played In his still haunt on Bagdad's summit high;* He who stood visible to Mirza's eye,
* See the Vision of Mirza, in the Spectator.
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