Ani te minired dragt Yorkshire dales, Among de racks and whing scars; Where deep and low the hamlets lie Benesch der inde pasch of sky And ime it if stars:

And all along the indented coast,
Bespattered with the salt-sea foam;
Where'er a knot of houses lay,
On headland, or in hollow bay;—
Sare never man like him did roam!

As well might Peter in the Fleet
Have been fast bound, a begging debtor;

He travelled here, he travelled there;

But not the value of a hair

Was heart or head the better.

"He roved among the vales and streams,
In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day, -
But Nature ne'er could find the way
Into the heart of Peter Bell.

"In vain, through every changeful year,

Did Nature lead him as before;

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

"Small change it made in Peter's heart
To see his gentle panniered train
With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
Where'er the tender grass was leading
Its earliest green along the lane.

"In vain, through water, earth, and air,
The soul of happy sound was spread,
When Peter on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thorn,
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.

"At noon, when by the forest's edge He lay beneath the branches high,

The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!

"On a fair prospect some have looked
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as steadfast as the scene
On which they gazed themselves away.

"Within the breast of Peter Bell
These silent raptures found no place;
He was a Carl as wild and rude
As ever hue-and-cry pursued,

As ever ran a felon's race.

"Of all that lead a lawless life,
Of all that love their lawless lives,

In city or in village small,
He was the wildest of them all;

He had a dozen wedded wives.

"Nay, start not!— wedded wives, and twelve!
But how one wife could e'er come near him,
In simple truth I cannot tell;
For, be it said of Peter Bell,

To see him was to fear him.

Though Nature could not touch his heart
By lovely forms, and silent weather,

And tender sounds, yet you might see
At once, that Peter Bell and she
Had often been together.

66 A

savage wildness round him hung,

As of a dweller out of doors;

In his whole figure and his mien

A savage character was seen

Of mountains and of dreary moors.

"To all the unshaped half-human thoughts

Which solitary Nature feeds

'Mid summer storms or winter's ice,

Had Peter joined whatever vice

The cruel city breeds.

"His face was keen as is the wind
That cuts along the hawthorn-fence;
Of courage you saw little there,
But, in its stead, a medley air
Of cunning and of impudence.

"He had a dark and sidelong walk,
And long and slouching was his gait;
Beneath his looks so bare and bold,
You might perceive, his spirit cold
Was playing with some inward bait.

"His forehead wrinkled was and furred; A work, one half of which was done

By thinking of his 'whens' and 'hows ';
And half, by knitting of his brows
Beneath the glaring sun.

"There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye,

As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!"

ONE night, (and now, my little Bess!

We've reached at last the promised Tale,)

One beautiful November night,

When the full moon was shining bright

Upon the rapid river Swale,

Along the river's winding banks
Peter was travelling all alone;
Whether to buy or sell, or led

By pleasure running in his head,
To me was never known.

He trudged along through copse and brake,

He trudged along o'er hill and dale;
Nor for the moon cared he a tittle,
And for the stars he cared as little,
And for the murmuring river Swale.