Peter Bell the Third | Page 4

stood.
9.?Yet his was individual mind,?And new created all he saw?In a new manner, and refined?Those new creations, and combined?Them, by a master-spirit's law.
10.?Thus--though unimaginative--?An apprehension clear, intense,?Of his mind's work, had made alive?The things it wrought on; I believe?Wakening a sort of thought in sense.
11.?But from the first 'twas Peter's drift?To be a kind of moral eunuch,?He touched the hem of Nature's shift,?Felt faint--and never dared uplift?The closest, all-concealing tunic.
12.?She laughed the while, with an arch smile,?And kissed him with a sister's kiss,?And said--My best Diogenes,?I love you well--but, if you please,?Tempt not again my deepest bliss.
13.?''Tis you are cold--for I, not coy,?Yield love for love, frank, warm, and true;?And Burns, a Scottish peasant boy--?His errors prove it--knew my joy?More, learned friend, than you.
14.?'Boeca bacciata non perde ventura,?Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna:--?So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a a Male prude, like you, from what you now endure, a?Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.
15.?Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe.?And smoothed his spacious forehead down?With his broad palm;--'twixt love and fear,?He looked, as he no doubt felt, queer,?And in his dream sate down.
16.?The Devil was no uncommon creature;?A leaden-witted thief--just huddled?Out of the dross and scum of nature;?A toad-like lump of limb and feature,?With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.
17.?He was that heavy, dull, cold thing,?The spirit of evil well may be:?A drone too base to have a sting;?Who gluts, and grimes his lazy wing,?And calls lust, luxury.
18.?Now he was quite the kind of wight?Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,?Venison, turtle, hock, and claret,--?Good cheer--and those who come to share it--?And best East Indian madeira!
19.?It was his fancy to invite?Men of science, wit, and learning,?Who came to lend each other light;?He proudly thought that his gold's might?Had set those spirits burning.
20.?And men of learning, science, wit,?Considered him as you and I?Think of some rotten tree, and sit?Lounging and dining under it,?Exposed to the wide sky.
21.?And all the while with loose fat smile,?The willing wretch sat winking there,?Believing 'twas his power that made?That jovial scene--and that all paid?Homage to his unnoticed chair.
22.?Though to be sure this place was Hell;?He was the Devil--and all they--?What though the claret circled well,?And wit, like ocean, rose and fell?--?Were damned eternally.
PART 5.
GRACE.
1.?Among the guests who often stayed?Till the Devil's petits-soupers,?A man there came, fair as a maid,?And Peter noted what he said,?Standing behind his master's chair.
2.?He was a mighty poet--and?A subtle-souled psychologist;?All things he seemed to understand,?Of old or new--of sea or land--?But his own mind--which was a mist.
3.?This was a man who might have turned?Hell into Heaven--and so in gladness?A Heaven unto himself have earned;?But he in shadows undiscerned?Trusted.--and damned himself to madness.
4.?He spoke of poetry, and how?'Divine it was--a light--a love--?A spirit which like wind doth blow?As it listeth, to and fro;?A dew rained down from God above;
5.?'A power which comes and goes like dream,?And which none can ever trace--?Heaven's light on earth--Truth's brightest beam.'?And when he ceased there lay the gleam?Of those words upon his face.
6.?Now Peter, when he heard such talk,?Would, heedless of a broken pate,?Stand like a man asleep, or balk?Some wishing guest of knife or fork,?Or drop and break his master's plate.
7.?At night he oft would start and wake?Like a lover, and began?In a wild measure songs to make?On moor, and glen, and rocky lake,?And on the heart of man--
8.?And on the universal sky--?And the wide earth's bosom green,--?And the sweet, strange mystery?Of what beyond these things may lie,?And yet remain unseen.
9.?For in his thought he visited?The spots in which, ere dead and damned,?He his wayward life had led;?Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed?Which thus his fancy crammed.
10.?And these obscure remembrances?Stirred such harmony in Peter,?That, whensoever he should please,?He could speak of rocks and trees?In poetic metre.
11.?For though it was without a sense?Of memory, yet he remembered well?Many a ditch and quick-set fence;?Of lakes he had intelligence,?He knew something of heath and fell.
12.?He had also dim recollections?Of pedlars tramping on their rounds;?Milk-pans and pails; and odd collections?Of saws, and proverbs; and reflections?Old parsons make in burying-grounds.
13.?But Peter's verse was clear, and came?Announcing from the frozen hearth?Of a cold age, that none might tame?The soul of that diviner flame?It augured to the Earth:
14.?Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,?Making that green which late was gray,?Or like the sudden moon, that stains?Some gloomy chamber's window-panes?With a broad light like day.
15.?For language was in Peter's hand?Like clay while he was yet a potter;?And he made songs for all the land,?Sweet both to feel and understand,?As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.
16.?And Mr. --, the bookseller,?Gave twenty pounds for some;--then scorning?A footman's yellow coat to wear,?Peter, too proud of heart, I fear,?Instantly gave the Devil warning.
17.?Whereat the Devil took offence,?And swore in his soul a great oath then,?'That for his damned impertinence?He'd bring him to a proper sense?Of