No More Learning

790

I've played, I've danced, [89] with my narration;
I loitered long ere I began:
Ye waited then on my good pleasure;
Pour out indulgence still, in measure
As liberal as ye can! 795

Our Travellers, ye remember well,
Are thridding a sequestered lane;
And Peter many tricks is trying,
And many anodynes applying,
To ease his conscience of its pain. 800

By this his heart is lighter far;
And, finding that he can account
So snugly [90] for that crimson stain,
His evil spirit up again
Does like an empty bucket mount. 805

And Peter is a deep logician
Who hath no lack of wit mercurial;
"Blood drops--leaves rustle--yet," quoth he,
"This poor man never, but for me,
Could have had Christian burial. 810

"And, say the best you can, 'tis plain,
That here has [91] been some wicked dealing;
No doubt the devil in me wrought;
I'm not the man who could have thought
An Ass like this was worth the stealing! " 815

So from his pocket Peter takes
His shining horn tobacco-box;
And, in a light and careless way,
As men who with their purpose play,
Upon the lid he knocks. 820

Let them whose voice can stop the clouds,
Whose cunning eye can see the wind,
Tell to a curious world the cause
Why, making here a sudden pause,
The Ass turned round his head, and _grinned_. 825

Appalling process! I have marked
The like on heath, in lonely wood;
And, verily, have seldom met
A spectacle more hideous--yet
It suited Peter's present mood. 830

And, grinning in his turn, his teeth
He in jocose defiance showed--
When, to upset [92] his spiteful mirth,
A murmur, pent within the earth,
In the dead earth beneath the road, 835

Rolled audibly! it swept along,
A muffled noise--a rumbling sound! --
'Twas by a troop of miners made,
Plying with gunpowder their trade,
Some twenty fathoms underground. 840

Small cause of dire effect! for, surely,
If ever mortal, King or Cotter,
Believed that earth was charged to quake
And yawn for his unworthy sake,
'Twas Peter Bell the Potter. 845

But, as an oak in breathless air
Will stand though to the centre hewn;
Or as the weakest things, if frost
Have stiffened them, maintain their post;
So he, beneath the gazing moon!
--850

The Beast bestriding thus, he reached
A spot where, in a sheltering cove, [93]
A little chapel stands alone,
With greenest ivy overgrown,
And tufted with an ivy grove; 855

Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,
It seemed--wall, window, roof and tower [94]--
To bow to some transforming power,
And blend with the surrounding trees. 860

As ruinous a place it was,
Thought Peter, in the shire of Fife
That served my turn, when following still
From land to land a reckless will [95]
I married my sixth wife! 865

The unheeding Ass moves slowly on,
And now is passing by an inn
Brim-full of a carousing crew,
That make, [96] with curses not a few,
An uproar and a drunken din. 870

I cannot well express the thoughts
Which Peter in those noises found;--
A stifling power compressed his frame,
While-as a swimming darkness came [97]
Over that dull and dreary sound. 875

For well did Peter know the sound;
The language of those drunken joys
To him, a jovial soul, I ween,
But a few hours ago, had been
A gladsome and a welcome noise. 880

_Now_, [98] turned adrift into the past,
He finds no solace in his course;
Like planet-stricken men of yore,
He trembles, smitten to the core
By strong compunction and remorse. 885

But, more than all, his heart is stung
To think of one, almost a child;
A sweet and playful Highland girl,
As light and beauteous as a squirrel,
As beauteous and as wild! 890

Her dwelling was a lonely house, [99]
A cottage in a heathy dell;
And she put on her gown of green,
And left her mother at sixteen,
And followed Peter Bell. 895

But many good and pious thoughts
Had she; and, in the kirk to pray,
Two long Scotch miles, through rain or snow,
To kirk she had been used to go,
Twice every Sabbath-day. 900

And, when she followed Peter Bell,
It was to lead an honest life;
For he, with tongue not used to falter,
Had pledged his troth before the altar
To love her as his wedded wife. 905

A mother's hope is hers;--but soon
She drooped and pined like one forlorn;
From Scripture she a name [100] did borrow;
Benoni, or the child of sorrow,
She called her babe unborn. 910

For she had learned how Peter lived,
And took it in most grievous part;
She to the very bone was worn,
And, ere that little child was born,
Died of a broken heart. 915

And now the Spirits of the Mind
Are busy with poor Peter Bell;
Upon the rights of visual sense
Usurping, with a prevalence
More terrible than magic spell. [101] 920

Close by a brake of flowering furze
(Above it shivering aspens play)
He sees an unsubstantial creature,
His very self in form and feature,
Not four yards from the broad highway: 925

And stretched beneath the furze he sees
The Highland girl--it is no other;
And hears her crying as she cried,
The very moment that she died,
"My mother! oh my mother! " 930

The sweat pours down from Peter's face,
So grievous is his heart's contrition;
With agony his eye-balls ache
While he beholds by the furze-brake
This miserable vision!