Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this sublime piece; the orb of my moonlight genius has made the fourth part of its revolution round the dull earth which you inhabit, driving you mad, while it has retained its calmness and its splendour, and I have been fitting this its last phase "to occupy a permanent station in the literature of my country. Your works, indeed, dear Tom, sell better; but mine are far superior. The public is no judge; posterity sets all to rights. Allow me to observe that so much has been written of Peter Bell that the present history can be considered only, like the Iliad, as a continuation of that series of cyclic poems which have already been candidates for bestowing immortality upon, at the same time that they receive it from, his character and adventures. In this point of view, I have violated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a conjunction; the full stop which closes the poem continued by me being, like the full stops at the end of the Iliad and Odyssey, a full stop of a very qualified import. Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges you will receive from them; and in the firm expectation that, when London shall be an habitation of bitterns; when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream; some transatlantic commentator will be weighing, in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism, the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges, and their historians, December 1, 1819. I remain, dear Tom, MICHING MALLECHO. P.S.-Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable street. PROLOGUE. PETER BELLS, one, two, and three, Wrapped in weeds of the same metre, The so long predestined raiment, Clothed in which to walk his way meant Is to link the proposition As the mean of two extremes (This was learnt from Aldrich's themes)— The first Peter-he who was Like the shadow in the glass Of the second, yet unripe, His substantial antitype. Then came Peter Bell the Second, Who henceforward must be reckoned The body of a double soul, And that portion of the whole Without which the rest would seem Ends of a disjointed dream.— And the Third is he who has 322 O'er the grave been forced to pass Peter Bell the First was Peter Born from that world into this. PART I.-DEATH. 1. AND Peter Bell, when he had been 2. His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down; Which Peter said or sang. 3. But Peter now grew old, and had His torments almost drove him mad ;- Some swore it was the gravel. 4. His holy friends then came about, And with long preaching and persuasion He was predestined to damnation. 5. They said: "Thy name is Peter Bell, 6. Then Peter set up such a yell The nurse, who with some water gruel 7. The parson from the casement leapt 8. And all the rest rushed through the door, And cursed his father and his mother; 9. And raved of God and sin and death. And said that with his clenched teeth 10. As he was speaking, came a spasm, II. And yellow death lay on his face; And a fixed smile that was not human That he was gone to the wrong place :- 12. Then there came down from Langdale Pike A cloud, with lightning, wind, and hail; It swept over the mountains like An ocean, and I heard it strike The woods and crags of Grasmere Vale. 13. And I saw the black storm come 14. The Devil was in it :-he had bought Peter for half-a-crown. And, when The storm which bore him vanished, nought That in, the house that storm had caught Was ever seen again... 15. The gaping neighbours came next day- PART II.-THE DEVIL. I. THE DEVIL, I safely can aver, 2. He is-what we are: for sometimes 3. A thief who cometh in the night, With whole boots and net pantaloons, Like some one whom it were not right To mention; or the luckless wight From whom he steals nine silver spoons, 4. But in this case he did appear Like a slop-merchant from Wapping, 5. He had on an upper Benjamin (For he was of the driving schism) 6. He called the ghost out of the corse. 7. The Devil knew not his name and lot, 8. Peter thought he had parents dear, Brothers, sisters, cousins, cronies, Where he thought oft when a boy 10. And the Devil thought he had, (The world is full of strange delusion); 11. That he had a mansion planned In a square like Grosvenor Square; 12. And all this, though quite ideal- Was a state not more unreal 13. After a little conversation, The Devil told Peter, if he chose, In his own service-and new clothes. 14. And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud; And, after waiting some few days For a new livery-dirty yellow Turned up with black,-the wretched fellow PART III.-HELL. I. HELL is a city much like London- Small justice shown, and still less pity. |