each week

Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,

The prosperous and unthinking, they who live

Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred ;-all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, per-
chance,

Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them
felt.

herself

By her own wants, she from her store of meal

Takes one unsparing handful for the

scrip

Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his

head!

And while in that vast solitude to which The tide of things has borne him, he

appears

To breathe and live but for himself alone, Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about The good which the benignant law of Heaven

Has hung around him: and, while life is his,

Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers

To tender offices and pensive thoughts. -Then let him pass, a blessing on his

head!

And, long as he can wander, let him breathe

The freshness of the valleys; let his blood

Struggle with frosty air and winter snows; And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath

Beat his grey locks against his withered face.

H

Reverence the hope whose vital anxious

ness

Gives the last human interest to his heart. May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, Make him a captive!-for that pent-up din,

Those life-consuming sounds that clog the

air,

Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or
not,

The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have

now

Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun,
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, where and when he will, sit
down

Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds
Share his chance-gathered meal; and,
finally,

As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!

1798.

ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY

THE little hedgerow birds, That peck along the roads, regard him

not.

He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression: every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but

moves

With thought.-He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet he is one by whom

All effort seems forgotten; one to whom Long patience hath such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing of

which

He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect that the young behold
With envy, what the Old Man hardly feels.
1798.

PETER BELL

A TALE

What's in a Name?

Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Cæsar! Written at Alfoxden. Founded upon an anecdote, which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water and proved to be the body of its master. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter, were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards nearly as far as the town of Hay. He told me strange stories. It has always been a pleasure to me through life to catch at every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted with this class of people. The number of Peter's wives was taken from the trespasses in this way of a lawless creature who lived in the county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself. Benoni, or the child of sorrow, I knew when I was a school-boy. His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth. The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old Dame, Anne Tyson, who was her confidante. The Lady died broken-hearted. In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem out of liking for the creature that is so often dreadfully abused.-The crescentmoon, which makes such a figure in the prologue, assumed this character one evening while I was watching its beauty in front of Alfoxden House. I intended this poem for the volume before spoken of, but it was not published for more than twenty years afterwards.-The worship of the Methodists or Ranters is often heard during the stillness of the summer evening in the country with affecting accompaniments of rural beauty. In both the psalmody and the voice of the preacher there is, not unfrequently, much solemnity likely to impress the feelings of the rudest characters under favourable circumstances.

ΤΟ

ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., P.L., ETC. ETC. MY DEAR FRIEND,

The Tale of Peter Bell, which I now introduce to your notice, and to that of the Public,

has, in its Manuscript state, nearly survived its minority:-for it first saw the light in the summer of 1798. During this long interval, pains have been taken at different times to make the production less unworthy of a favourable reception; or, rather, to fit it for filling permanently a station, however humble, in the Literature of our Country. This has, indeed, been the aim of all my endeavours in Poetry, which, you know, have been sufficiently laborious to prove that I deem the Art not lightly to be approached; and that the attainment of excellence in it may laudably be made the principal object of intellectual pursuit by any man, who, with reasonable consideration of circumstances, has faith in his own impulses.

The Poem of Peter Bell, as the Prologue will show, was composed under a belief that the Imagination not only does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously and for kindred results of pleasure, by incidents, within the compass of poetic probability, in the humblest departments of daily life. Since that Prologue was written, you have exhibited most splendid effects of judicious daring, in the opposite and usual course. Let this acknowledgment make my peace with the lovers of the supernatural; and I am persuaded it will be admitted, that to you, as a Master in that province of the Art, the following Tale, whether from contrast or congruity, is not an unappropriate offering. Accept it, then, as a public testimony of affectionate admiration from one with whose name yours has been often coupled (to use your own words) for evil and for good; and believe me to be, with earnest wishes that life and health may be granted you to complete the many important works in which you are engaged, and with high respect,

Most faithfully yours,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Rydal Mount, April 7, 1819.

PROLOGUE

THERE'S Something in a flying horse,
'There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.

And now I have a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up-and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,

Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,
To see how ye are all distrest,
Till my ribs ached, I'd laugh at you!

Away we go, my Boat and I—
Frail man ne'er sate in such another;
Whether among the winds we strive,
Or deep into the clouds we dive,
Each is contented with the other.

Away we go-and what care we
For treasons, tumults, and for wars?
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 Through 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.