For the tired slave, Song lifts the languid oar, And mitigates the harshest clime. Yon pilgrims see-in lagging file They move; but soon the appointed way Nor friendless he, the prisoner of the mine, Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled— By concords winding with a sway Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay. Pure modulations flowing from the heart Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth With Order dwell, in endless youth? When civic renovation Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads? Even She whose Lydian airs inspire Peaceful striving, gentle play Of timid hope and innocent desire Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move VI. How oft along thy mazes, To a voluptuous influence That taints the purer, better, mind; But lead sick Fancy to a harp That hath in noble tasks been tried; And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp, And let some mood of thine in firm array VII. As Conscience, to the centre Of being, smites with irresistible pain The mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain, Oblivion may not cover VIII. All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time. And voice and shell drew forth a tear IX. The GIFT to king Amphion That walled a city with its melody Was for belief no dream:-thy skill, Arion ! So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang! This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned. Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear The convict's summons in the steeple's knell ; 'The vain distress-gun,' from a leeward shore, Repeated-heard, and heard no more! For terror, joy, or pity, XI. Vast is the compass and the swell of notes: Ye wandering Utterances, has earth no scheme, As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear! By one pervading spirit XII. Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still With everlasting harmony; The towering headlands, crowned with mist, That Ocean is a mighty harmonist; Are delegates of harmony, and bear XIIL Break forth into thanksgiving, Ye banded instruments of wind and chords; Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words! Nor mute the forest hum of noon; Thou too be heard, lone eagle! freed From snowy peak and cloud, attune Thy hungry barkings to the hymn All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep XIV. A Voice to Light gave Being; To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler ; To archangelic lips applied, The grave shall open, quench the stars. O Silence! are Man's noisy years No more than moments of thy life! | Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears, With her smooth tones and discords just, Tempered into rapturous strife, Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay Is in the WORD, that shall not pass away. 1828. MY DEAR FRIEND, The Tale of Peter Bell, which I now introduce to your notice, and to that of the Public, has, in its Manuscript state, nearly survived its minority:-for it first saw the light in the summer of 1798. During this long interval, pains have been taken at different times to make the production less unworthy of a favourable reception; or, rather, to fit it for filling permanently a station, however humble, in the Literature of our Country. This has, indeed, been the aim of all my endeavours in Poetry, which, you know, have been sufficiently laborious to prove that I deem the Art not lightly to be approached; and that the attainment of excellence in it, may laudably be made the principal object of intellectual pursuit by any man, who, with reasonable consideration of circumstances, has faith in his own impulses. The Poem of Peter Bell, as the Prologue will show, was composed under a belief that the Imagination not only does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously and for kindred results of pleasure, by incidents, within the compass of poetic probability, in the humblest departments of daily life. Since that Prologue was written, you have exhibited most splendid effects of judicious daring, in the opposite and usual course. Let this acknowledgment make my peace with the lovers of the supernatural; and I am persuaded it will be admitted, that to you, as a Master in that province of the art, the following Tale, whether from contrast or congruity, is not an unappropriate offering. Accept it, then, as a public testimony of affectionate admiration from one with whose name yours has been often coupled (to use your own words) for evil and for good; and believe me to be, with earnest wishes that life and health may be granted you to complete the many important works in which you are engaged, and with high respect, Most faithfully yours, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. RYDAL MOUNT, April 7, 1819. PROLOGUE. THERE's something in a flying horse, For shape just like the crescent-moon. And now I have a little Boat, The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring, Meanwhile untroubled I admire Away we go, my Boat and I Frail man ne'er sate in such another; Away we go and what care we Up goes my Boat among the stars The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull- |