Peter Bell the Third | Page 5

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 what was due to gentlemen!'
PART 6.
DAMNATION.
1.
'O that mine enemy had written
A book!'--cried Job:--a fearful
curse,
If to the Arab, as the Briton,
'Twas galling to be
critic-bitten:--
The Devil to Peter wished no worse.
2.
When Peter's next new book found vent,
The Devil to all the first
Reviews
A copy of it slyly sent,
With five-pound note as
compliment,
And this short notice--'Pray abuse.'
3.
Then seriatim, month and quarter,
Appeared such mad
tirades.--One said--
'Peter seduced Mrs. Foy's daughter,
Then
drowned the mother in Ullswater,
The last thing as he went to bed.'
4.
Another--'Let him shave his head!
Where's Dr. Willis?--Or is he
joking?
What does the rascal mean or hope,
No longer imitating
Pope,
In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?'
5.
One more, 'Is incest not enough?
And must there be adultery too?

Grace after meat? Miscreant and Liar!
Thief! Blackguard!
Scoundrel! Fool! hell-fire
Is twenty times too good for you.
6.
'By that last book of yours WE think
You've double damned
yourself to scorn;
We warned you whilst yet on the brink
You stood.
From your black name will shrink
The babe that is unborn.'
7.
All these Reviews the Devil made
Up in a parcel, which he had

Safely to Peter's house conveyed.

For carriage, tenpence Peter
paid--
Untied them--read them--went half mad.

8.
'What!' cried he, 'this is my reward
For nights of thought, and
days, of toil?
Do poets, but to be abhorred
By men of whom they
never heard,
Consume their spirits' oil?
9.
'What have I done to them?--and who
IS Mrs. Foy? 'Tis very
cruel
To speak of me and Betty so!
Adultery! God defend me! Oh!

I've half a mind to fight a duel.
10.
'Or,' cried he, a grave look collecting,
'Is it my genius, like the
moon,
Sets those who stand her face inspecting,
That face within
their brain reflecting,
Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?'
11.
For Peter did not know the town,
But thought, as country
readers do,
For half a guinea or a crown,
He bought oblivion or
renown
From God's own voice in a review.
12.
All Peter did on this occasion
Was, writing some sad stuff in
prose.
It is a dangerous invasion
When poets criticize; their station

Is to delight, not pose.
13.
The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair
For Born's translation of
Kant's book;
A world of words, tail foremost, where

Right--wrong--false--true--and foul--and fair
As in a lottery-wheel
are shook.
14.
Five thousand crammed octavo pages
Of German
psychologics,--he
Who his furor verborum assuages
Thereon,
deserves just seven months' wages
More than will e'er be due to me.
15.
I looked on them nine several days,
And then I saw that they
were bad;
A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,--
He never read
them;--with amaze

I found Sir William Drummond had.
16.
When the book came, the Devil sent
It to P. Verbovale, Esquire,

With a brief note of compliment,
By that night's Carlisle mail. It

went,
And set his soul on fire.
17.
Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,
Made him beyond the
bottom see
Of truth's clear well--when I and you, Ma'am,
Go, as we
shall do, subter humum,
We may know more than he.
18.
Now Peter ran to seed in soul
Into a walking paradox;
For he
was neither part nor whole,
Nor good, nor bad--nor knave nor fool;

--Among the woods and rocks
19.
Furious he rode, where late he ran,
Lashing and spurring his
tame hobby;
Turned to a formal puritan,
A solemn and unsexual
man,--
He half believed "White Obi".
20.
This steed in vision he would ride,
High trotting over nine-inch
bridges,
With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride,
Mocking and mowing
by his side--
A mad-brained goblin for a guide--
Over corn-fields,
gates, and hedges.
21.
After these ghastly rides, he came
Home to his heart, and found
from thence
Much stolen of its accustomed flame;
His thoughts
grew weak, drowsy, and lame
Of their intelligence.
22.
To Peter's view, all seemed one hue;
He was no Whig, he was
no Tory;
No Deist and no Christian he;--
He got so subtle, that to be

Nothing, was all his glory.
23.
One single point in his belief
From his organization sprung,

The heart-enrooted faith, the chief
Ear in his doctrines' blighted sheaf,

That 'Happiness is wrong';
24.
So thought Calvin and Dominic;
So think their fierce successors,
who
Even now would neither stint nor stick

Our flesh from off our
bones to pick,
If they might 'do their do.'

25.
His morals thus were undermined:--
The old Peter--the hard, old
Potter--
Was born anew within his mind;
He grew dull, harsh, sly,
unrefined,
As when he tramped beside the Otter.
26.
In the death hues of agony
Lambently flashing from a fish,

Now Peter felt amused to see
Shades like