XIL

By one pervading spirit

Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls,

still

As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill

With everlasting harmony;

The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know

That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,

Ever waving to and fro,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear

Strains that support the Seasons in their round; Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

XIII.

Break forth into thanksgiving,

Ye banded instruments of wind and chords;
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,

Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon;
Thou too be heard, lone eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune

For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured Into the ear of God, their Lord!

XIV.

A Voice to Light gave Being;

To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler :
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)
To archangelic lips applied,

The grave shall open, quench the stars.
O Silence! are Man's noisy years
No more than moments of thy life?

Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just,
Tempered into rapturous strife,

Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust

And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay

Is in the WORD that shall not pass away. 1828.

We are as calm in our delight
As is the crescent-moon so bright
Among the scattered stars.

Up goes my Boat among the stars
Though many a breathless field of light,
Through many a long blue field of ether,
Leaving ten thousand stars beneath her;
Up goes my little Boat so bright!
The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull-
We pry among them all; have shot
High o'er the red-haired race of Mars,
Covered from top to toe with scars:
Such company I like it not!

The towns in Saturn are decayed,
And melancholy Spectres throng them ;-
The Pleiads, that appear to kiss
Each other in the vast abyss,
With joy I sail among them.

Swift Mercury resounds with mirth,
Great Jove is full of stately bowers;
But these, and all that they contain,
What are they to that tiny grain,
That little Earth of ours?

Then back to Earth, the dear green Earth:-
Whole ages if I here should roam,
The world for my remarks and me
Would not a whit the better be;
I've left my heart at home.

See! there she is, the matchless Earth!
There spreads the famed Pacific Ocean!
Old Andes thrusts yon craggy spear
Through the grey clouds: the Alps are here,
Like waters in commotion !

Yon tawny slip is Libya's sands:
That silver thread the river Dnieper;

And look, where clothed in brightest green
Is a sweet Isle, of isles the Queen:
Ye fairies, from all evil keep her!
And see the town where I was born!
Around those happy fields we span
In boyish gambols-I was lost

Where I have been, but on this coast
I feel I am a man.

Never did fifty things at once
Appear so lovely, never, never ;-
How tunefully the forests ring!
To hear the earth's soft murmuring
Thus could I hang for ever!

"Shame on you!" cried my little Boat,
"Was ever such a homesick Loon,
Within a living Boat to sit,
And make no better use of it,

A Boat twin-sister of the crescent-moon!

Ne'er in the breast of full-grown Poet
Fluttered so faint a heart before ;-
Was it the music of the spheres
That overpowered your mortal ears?
-Such din shall trouble them no more.

These nether precincts do not lack
Charms of their own ;-then come with me;
I want a comrade, and for you
There's nothing that I would not do;
Nought is there that you shall not see.
Haste! and above Siberian snows
We'll sport amid the boreal morning;
Will mingle with her lustres gliding

Among the stars, the stars now hiding,
And now the stars adorning.

I know the secrets of a land
Where human foot did never stray;
Fair is that land as evening skies,
And cool, though in the depth it lies
Of burning Africa.

Or we'll into the realm of Faery,
Among the lovely shades of things:
The shadowy forms of mountains bare,
And streams, and bowers, and ladies fair,
The shades of palaces and kings!
Or, if you thirst with hardy zeal
Less quiet regions to explore,
Prompt voyage shall to you reveal
How earth and heaven are taught to feel
The might of magic lore!"

"My little vagrant Form of light,
My gay and beautiful Canoe,

Well have you played your friendly part;
As kindly take what from my heart
Experience forces-then adieu!
Temptation lurks among your words;
But, while these pleasures you're pursuing
Without impediment or let,

No wonder if you quite forget
What on the earth is doing.

There was a time when all mankind
Did listen with a faith sincere
To tuneful tongues in mystery versed;
Then Poets fearlessly rehearsed
The wonders of a wild career.
Go-(but the world's a sleepy world,
And 'tis, I fear, an age too late)
Take with you some ambitious Youth!
For, restless Wanderer! I, in truth,
Am all unfit to be your mate.

Long have I loved what I behold,

The night that calms, the day that cheers: The common growth of mother-earth Suffices me-her tears, her mirth,

Her humblest mirth and tears.

The dragon's wing, the magic ring,
I shall not covet for my dower,

If I along that lowly way

With sympathetic heart may stray,
And with a soul of power

These given, what more need I desire
To stir, to soothe, or elevate?
What nobler marvels than the mind
May in life's daily prospect find,
May find or there create?

A potent wand doth Sorrow wield;
What spell so strong as guilty Fear!.
Repentance is a tender Sprite;
If aught on earth have heavenly might,
'Tis lodged within her silent tear.
But grant my wishes,-let us now
Descend from this ethereal height;
Then take thy way, adventurous Skiff,
More daring far than Hippogriff,
And be thy own delight!

To the stone-table in my garden,
Loved haunt of many a summer hour,
The Squire is come: his daughter Bess
Beside him in the cool recess

Sits blooming like a flower.

With these are many more convened;
They know not I have been so far ;-
I see them there, in number nine,
Beneath the spreading Weymouth pine!
I see them-there they are!

There sits the Vicar and his Dame;

And there my good friend, Stephen Otter;
And, ere the light of evening fail,
To them I must relate the Tale
Of Peter Bell the Potter."

Off flew the Boat-away she flees,
Spurning her freight with indignation!
And I, as well as I was able,

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

"O, here he is!" cried little Bess-
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 quickly 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.

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.
"Hold!" cried the Squire, "against the rules
Of common sense you're surely sinning;
This leap is for us all too bold;
Who Peter was, let that be told,
And start from the beginning."

-"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 !

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,

In the dialect of the North, a hawker of earthenware is thus designated.

147

Had danced his round with Highland lasses; And he had lain beside his asses

On lofty Cheviot Hills:

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

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,
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
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
On which they gazed themselves away.
Within the breast of Peter Bell
These silent raptures found no place;
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.

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.

Though Nature could not touch his heart
By lovely forms, and silent weather,
And tender sounds, yet you might see