And I, as well as I was able,

On two poor legs, toward my stone-table
Limped on with sore vexation.1

"O, here he is!" cried little Bess

175

She saw me at the garden-door;
"We've waited anxiously and long,"

They cried, and all around me throng,
Full nine of them or more!

"Reproach me not-your fears be still—
Be thankful we again have met ;—
Resume, my Friends! within the shade
Your seats, and quickly2 shall be paid
The well-remembered debt."

I spake with faltering voice, like one
Not wholly rescued from the pale
Of a wild dream, or worse illusion ;
But, straight, to cover my confusion,
Began the promised Tale.3

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185

190

PART FIRST

ALL by the moonlight river side
Groaned the poor Beast-alas! in vain;
The staff was raised to loftier height,
And the blows fell with heavier weight
As Peter struck-and struck again.1

2

"Hold!" cried the Squire, "against the rules Of common sense you're surely sinning;

This leap is for us all too bold; 3

Who Peter was, let that be told,
And start from the beginning.”

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200

Cried, O dear Sir! but who is Peter?"

Said Stephen,-"'Tis a downright riddle!"

3 1836.

The Squire said, Sure as paradise
Was lost to man by Adam's sinning,

This leap is for us all too bold;

Like winds that lash the waves, or smite

The woods, the autumnal foliage thinning

1819.

1819.

"Hold! said the Squire,

"I pray you, hold!

1820.

The woods, autumnal foliage thinning

1827.

"A Potter,* Sir, he was by trade,"
Said I, becoming quite collected;
"And wheresoever he appeared,
Full twenty times was Peter feared
For once that Peter was respected.

"He two-and-thirty years or more,
Had been a wild and woodland rover;
Had heard the Atlantic surges roar
On farthest Cornwall's rocky shore,
And trod the cliffs of Dover.

"And he had seen Caernarvon's towers,
And well he knew the spire of Sarum ;
And he had been where Lincoln bell

Flings o'er the fen that ponderous knell—
A far-renowned alarum.1

"At Doncaster, at York, and Leeds,

And merry Carlisle had he been ;

And all along the Lowlands fair,

All through the bonny shire of Ayr ;
And far as Aberdeen.

"And he had been at Inverness;

And Peter, by the mountain-rills,

Had danced his round with Highland lasses;

And he had lain beside his asses

On lofty Cheviot Hills:

205

210

215

220

225

His far-renowned alarum !

* In the dialect of the North, a hawker of earthen-ware is thus designated.

-W. W. 1819 (second edition).

"And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
Among the rocks and winding scars;
Where deep and low the hamlets lie
Beneath their little patch of sky
And little lot of stars:

"And all along the indented coast,
Bespattered with the salt-sea foam;
Where'er a knot of houses lay
On headland, or in hollow bay ;-
Sure never man like him did roam !

"As well might Peter, in the Fleet,
Have been fast bound, a begging debtor ;—
He travelled here, he travelled there ;-
But not the value of a hair

Was heart or head the better.

230

235

240

"He roved among the vales and streams,

In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day,—
But nature ne'er could find the way

Into the heart of Peter Bell.

"In vain, through every changeful year,

Did Nature lead him as before;

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

"Small change it made in Peter's heart
To see his gentle panniered train
With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
Where'er the tender grass was leading
Its earliest green along the lane.

"In vain, through water, earth, and air, The soul of happy sound was spread,

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250

255

When Peter on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thorn,
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.

"At noon, when, by the forest's edge
He lay beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt

1

The witchery of the soft blue sky!

"On a fair prospect some have looked
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as steadfast as the scene

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265

On which they gazed themselves away.

270

"Within the breast of Peter Bell
These silent raptures found no place;1
He was a Carl as wild and rude
As ever hue-and-cry pursued,
As ever ran a felon's race.

"Of all that lead a lawless life,

Of all that love their lawless lives,

In city or in village small,

He was the wildest far of all ;—

He had a dozen wedded wives.

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280

"Nay, start not !-wedded wives-and twelve ! But how one wife could e'er come near him,

In simple truth I cannot tell;

For, be it said of Peter Bell,

To see him was to fear him.

285

1820.

With Peter Bell, I need not tell

That this had never been the case ;

1819.