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 to 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 Otte.
And, ere the light of evening fail,
To them I must relate the Tale
Of Peter Bell the Potter."
Off flew my sparkling Boat in scorn,
Spurning her freight with indignation!
And I, as well as I was able,
On two poor legs, tow'rd my stone-table
Limped on with some 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.
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.
Like winds that lash the waves, or smite
The woods, autumnal foliage thinning -
"Hold!" said the Squire, "I pray you hold.
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 its ponderous knell,
Its 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,
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.
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