Is reached; but there the trusty guide Into a thicket turns aside,

And deftly ambles towards the south.

When hark a burst of doleful sound!
And Peter honestly might say,
The like came never to his ears,
Though he has been, full thirty years,
A rover, night and day!

"T is not a plover of the moors, "T is not a bittern of the fen; Nor can it be a barking fox,

Nor night-bird chambered in the rocks, Nor wild-cat in a woody glen!

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,

Is silent as a silent cricket.

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:

I see a blooming Wood-boy there,
And if I had the power to say

How sorrowful the wanderer is, Your heart would be as sad as his had kissed his tears away!

Till

you

Grasping a hawthorn branch in hand,
All bright with berries ripe and red,
Into the cavern's mouth he peeps ;
Thence back into the moonlight creeps;
Whom seeks he,-whom?- the silent dead:

Him hath he sought, with fruitless pains,
Among the rocks, behind the trees;

Now creeping on his hands and knees,
Now running o'er the open plains.

And hither is he come at last,

When he through such a day has gone,

By this dark cave to be distrest

Like a poor bird,

her plundered nest

Hovering around with dolorous moan!

Of that intense and piercing cry
The listening Ass conjectures well;
Wild as it is, he there can read
Some intermingled notes that plead
With touches irresistible.

But Peter, when he saw the Ass
Not only stop, but turn, and change

The cherished tenor of his

pace

That lamentable cry to chase,

It wrought in him conviction strange;

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
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.

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-windows,
And castles all with ivy green!

And while the Ass pursues his way

Along this solitary dell,

As pensively his steps advance,

The mosques and spires change countenance, And look at Peter Bell!

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.

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!"

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,

Or in the dust, a crimson stain.

A stain, -as of a drop of blood

By moonlight made more faint and wan;
Ha! why these sinkings of despair?

He knows not how the blood comes there,-
And Peter is a wicked man.

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;

--

Of him whom sudden death had seized
He thought, of thee, O faithful Ass!