From Peter's hand the sapling dropped!
Threat has he none to execute;
"If any one should come and see
That I am here, they'll think," quoth he,
"I'm helping this poor dying brute." 490
He scans the Ass from limb to limb,
And ventures now to uplift his eyes;
More steady looks the moon, and clear,
More like themselves the rocks appear
And touch more quiet skies.
His scorn returns-his hate revives;
He stoops the Ass's neck to seize
With malice-that again takes flight;
For in the pool a startling sight
Meets him, among the inverted trees. 500
Is it the moon's distorted face?
The ghost-like image of a cloud?
Is it a gallows there portrayed?
Is Peter of himself afraid?
Is it a coffin,-or a shroud?
A grisly idol hewn in stone?
Or imp from witch's lap let fall?
Perhaps a ring of shining fairies?
Such as pursue their feared vagaries
In sylvan bower, or haunted hall?
Is it a fiend that to a stake
WE left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river-side,
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quivet
A happy respite! but at length
He feels the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eye, and feeb
sighing-
To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
Into a second swoon!
He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches-'tis to him a treasure!
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwell-
A thought received with languid pleasur
His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and less perplexed,
Sky-ward he looks-to rock and wood-
And then-upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.
Thought he, that is the face of one
In his last sleep securely bound!
So toward the stream his head he bent,
510 And downward thrust his staff, intent
The river's depth to sound.
He pulls-and looks-and pulls again;
And he whom the poor Ass had lost,
The man who had been four days dead,
Head-foremost from the river's bed
prises like a ghost!
The Ass is startled-and stops short
Right in the middle of the thicket;
And Peter, wont to whistle loud
Whether alone or in a crowd,
580 Is silent as a silent cricket.
And Peter draws him to dry land;
And through the brain of Peter pass
Some poignant twitches, fast and faster;
No doubt," quoth he, "he is the Master
this poor miserable Ass!"
585
The meagre shadow that looks on-
That would he now? what is he doing?
is sudden fit of joy is flown,-
le on his knees hath laid him down,
sif he were his grief renewing;
ut no-that Peter on his back
Just mount, he shows well as he can :
hought Peter then, come weal or woe,
I do what he would have me do,
pity to this poor drowned man.
ith that resolve he boldly mounts pon the pleased and thankful Ass; d then, without a moment's stay, st earnest Creature turned away, eaving the body on the grass.
tent upon his faithful watch,
What ails you now, my little Bess?
Well may you tremble and look grave!
This cry-that rings along the wood,
This cry-that floats adown the flood,
Comes from the entrance of a cave:
And hither is he come at last,
he Beast four days and nights had past; When he through such a day has gone,
sweeter meadow ne'er was seen,
d there the Ass four days had been, orever once did break his fast:
Et firm his step, and stout his heart;
e mead is crossed-the quarry's mouth
reached; but there the trusty guide
to a thicket turns aside,
By this dark cave to be distrest
Like a poor bird-her plundered nest
Hovering around with dolorous moan! 650
Of that intense and piercing cry
The listening Ass conjectures well;
Wild as it is, he there can read
Some intermingled notes that plead
ad deftly ambles towards the south. 610 With touches irresistible.
It wrought in him conviction strange; 660
A faith that for the dead man's sake,
And this poor slave who loved him well,
Vengeance upon his head will fall,
Some visitation worse than all
620. Which ever till this night befell.
Meanwhile the Ass to reach his home
Is striving stoutly as he may;
But, while he climbs the woody hill,
The cry grows weak-and weaker still;
And now at last it dies away.
So with his freight the Creature turns
Into a gloomy grove of beech,
Along the shade with footsteps true
Descending slowly, till the two
The open moonlight reach.
And there, along the narrow dell,
A fair smooth pathway you discern,
A length of green and open road-
As if it from a fountain flowed-
Winding away between the fern.
To a close lane they now are come,
Where, as before, the enduring Ass
Moves on without a moment's stop,
Nor once turns round his head to crop
A bramble-leaf or blade of grass.
Between the hedges as they go,
The white dust sleeps upon the lane;
And Peter, ever and anon
Back-looking, sees, upon a stone,
675 Or in the dust, a crimson stain.
A stain-as of a drop of blood
By moonlight made more faint and wai
Ha! why these sinkings of despair?
He knows not how the blood comes ther
680 And Peter is a wicked man.
The rocks that tower on either side
Build up a wild fantastic scene;
Temples like those among the Hindoos,
And mosques, and spires, and abbey-win-
dows,
And castles all with ivy green!
And while the Ass pursues his way
Along this solitary dell,
As pensively his steps advance,
At length he spies a bleeding wound,
Where he had struck the Ass's head;
He sees the blood, knows what it is,—
A glimpse of sudden joy was his,
But then it quickly fled;
685 Of him whom sudden death had seized
He thought,-of thee, O faithful Ass!
And once again those ghastly pains,
Shoot to and fro through heart and reit
The mosques and spires change counte- And through his brain like lightni
That unintelligible cry
Hath left him high in preparation,—
Convinced that he, or soon or late,
This very night will meet his fate-
And so he sits in expectation!
The strenuous Animal hath clomb
With the green path; and now he wends
Where, shining like the smoothest sea,
In undisturbed immensity
A level plain extends.
I've heard of one, a gentle Soul,
Though given to sadness and to gloom,
And for the fact will vouch,-one night
It chanced that by a taper's light
695 This man was reading in his room;
Bending, as you or I might bend
At night o'er any pious book,
When sudden blackness overspread
The snow-white page on which he read
And made the good man round him log
The chamber walls were dark all round
And to his book he turned again;
-The light had left the lonely taper,
And formed itself upon the paper
Into large letters-bright and plain!
The godly book was in his hand-
And on the page, more black than coal,
Appeared, set forth in strange array,
A word—which to his dying day
But whence this faintly-rustling sound
By which the journeying pair are chased?
-A withered leaf is close behind,
Light plaything for the sportive wind
Upon that solitary waste.
When Peter spied the moving thing,
It only doubled his distress;
"Where there is not a bush or tree,
The very leaves they follow me
So huge hath been my wickedness!" 710 Perplexed the good man's gentle soul.
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 grin-
ned.
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 upset his spiteful mirth,
A murmur, pent within the earth,
In the dead earth beneath the road,
Our Travellers, ye remember well, Are thridding a sequestered lane;
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,
845 As beauteous and as wild!
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 !— 850
The Beast bestriding thus, he reached
A spot where, in a sheltering cove,
A little chapel stands alone,
With greenest ivy overgrown,
And tufted with an ivy grove;
Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,
It seemed-wall, window, roof and tower-
To bow to some transforming power,
And blend with the surrounding trees. 860
As ruinous a place it was,
Thought Peter, in the shire of Fife
Her dwelling was a lonely house,
A cottage in a heathy dell;
And she put on her gown of green,
And left 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 e
To kirk she had been used to go,
Twice every Sabbath-day.
And, when she followed Peter Bell,
It 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
That served my turn, when following still She drooped and pined like one forlorn; From land to land a reckless will
The unheeding Ass moves slowly on,
And now is passing by an inn
Brim-full 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,
While-as a swimming 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
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,
880 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,
By strong compunction and remorse. 885 "My mother! oh my mother!"
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