Love sometimes leads astray to misery.
Yet think not, though subdued — and I may well 350
Say that I am subdued — that the full hell
Within me would infect the untainted breast
Of sacred Nature with its own unrest;
As some perverted beings think to find
In soorn or hate a medicine for the mind
Which soorn or hate have wounded — oh, how vain!
The dagger heals not, but may rend again!
Believe that I am ever still the same
In creed as in resolve; and what may tame
My heart must leave the understanding free, 360
Or all would sink in this keen agony;
Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;
Or with my silence sanction tyranny;
Or seek a moment’s shelter from my pain
In any madness which the world calls gain,
Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern
As those which make me what I am; or turn
To avarice or misanthropy or lust.
Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!
Till then the dungeon may demand its prey, 370
And Poverty and Shame may meet and say,
Halting beside me on the public way,
“That love-devoted youth is ours; let ‘s sit
Beside him; he may live some six months yet.”
Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,
May ask some willing victim; or ye, friends,
May fall under some sorrow, which this heart
Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;
I am prepared — in truth, with no proud joy,
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 380
I did devote to justice and to love
My nature, worthless now! —
‘I must remove
A veil from my pent mind. ‘T is torn aside!
O pallid as Death’s dedicated bride,
Thou mockery which art sitting by my side,
Am I not wan like thee? at the grave’s call
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball,
To greet the ghastly paramour for whom
Thou hast deserted me — and made the tomb
Thy bridal bed — but I beside your feet 390
Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet —
Thus — wide-awake though dead — yet stay, oh, stay!
Go not so soon — know not what I say —
Hear but my reasons — I am mad, I fear,
My fancy is o’erwrought — thou art not here;
Pale art thou, ‘t is most true — but thou art gone,
Thy work is finished — I am left alone.
. . . . . . . . .
‘Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast,
Which like a serpent thou envenomest
As in repayment of the warmth it lent? 400
Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?
Did not thy love awaken mine? I thought
That thou wert she who said “You kiss me not
Ever; I fear you do not love me now” —
In truth I loved even to my overthrow
Her who would fain forget these words; but they
Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.
. . . . . . . . .
‘You say that I am proud — that when I speak
My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break
The spirit it expresses. — Never one 410
Humbled himself before, as I have done!
Even the instinctive worm on which we tread
Turns, though it wound not — then with prostrate head
Sinks in the dust and writhes like me — and dies?
No: wears a living death of agonies!
As the slow shadows of the pointed grass
Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,
Slow, ever-moving, making moments be
As mine seem, — each an immortality!
. . . . . . . . .
‘That you had never seen me — never heard 420
My voice, and more than all had ne’er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace —
That your eyes ne’er had lied love in my face —
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root
With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne’er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there
To disunite in horror — these were not
With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought
Which flits athwart our musings but can find 430
No rest within a pure and gentle mind;
Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,
And sear’dst my memory o’er them, — for I heard
And can forget not; — they were ministered
One after one, those curses. Mix them up
Like self-destroying poisons in one cup,
And they will make one blessing, which thou ne’er
Didst imprecate for on me, — death.
. . . . . . . . .
‘It were
A cruel punishment for one most cruel,
If such can love, to make that love the fuel 440
Of the mind’s hell — hate, scorn, remorse, despair;
But me, whose heart a stranger’s tear might wear
As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone,
Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan
For woes which others hear not, and could see
The absent with the glance of fantasy,
And with the poor and trampled sit and weep,
Following the captive to his dungeon deep;
Me — who am as a nerve o’er which do creep
The else unfelt oppressions of this earth, 450
And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,
When all beside was cold: — that thou on me
Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony!
Such curses are from lips once eloquent
With love’s too partial praise! Let none relent
Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name
Henceforth, if an example for the same
They seek: — for thou on me look’dst so, and so —
And didst speak thus — and thus. I live to show
How much men bear and die not!
. . . . . . . . .
‘Thou wilt tell 460
With the grimace of hate how horrible
It was to meet my love when thine grew less;
Thou wilt admire how I could e’er address
Such features to love’s work. This taunt, though true,
(For indeed Nature nor in form nor hue
Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship)
Shall not be thy defence; for since thy lip
Met mine first, years long past, — since thine eye kindled
With soft fire under mine, — I have not dwindled,
Nor changed in mind or body, or in aught 470
But as love changes what it loveth not
After long years and many trials.
‘How vain
Are words! I thought never to speak again,
Not even in secret, not to mine own heart;
But from my lips the unwilling accents start,
And from my pen the words flow as I write,
Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears; my sight
Is dim to see that charactered in vain
On this unfeeling leaf, which burns the brain
And eats into it, blotting all things fair 480
And wise and good which time had written there.
Those who inflict must suffer, for they see
The work of their own hearts, and this must be
Our chastisement or recompense. — O child!
I would that thine were like to be more mild
&
nbsp; For both our wretched sakes, — for thine the most
Who feelest already all that thou hast lost
Without the power to wish it thine again;
And as slow years pass, a funereal train,
Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend 490
Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend
No thought on my dead memory?
. . . . . . . . .
‘Alas, love!
Fear me not — against thee I would not move
A finger in despite. Do I not live
That thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve?
I give thee tears for scorn, and love for hate;
And that thy lot may be less desolate
Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain
From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain.
Then, when thou speakest of me, never say 500
“He could forgive not.” Here I cast away
All human passions, all revenge, all pride;
I think, speak, act no ill; I do but hide
Under these words, like embers, every spark
Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark
The grave is yawning — as its roof shall cover
My limbs with dust and worms under and over,
So let Oblivion hide this grief — the air
Closes upon my accents as despair
Upon my heart — let death upon despair!’ 510
He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile;
Then rising, with a melancholy smile,
Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept
A heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept,
And muttered some familiar name, and we
Wept without shame in his society.
I think I never was impressed so much;
The man who were not must have lacked a touch
Of human nature. — Then we lingered not,
Although our argument was quite forgot; 520
But, calling the attendants, went to dine
At Maddalo’s; yet neither cheer nor wine
Could give us spirits, for we talked of him
And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim;
And we agreed his was some dreadful ill
Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,
By a dear friend; some deadly change in love
Of one vowed deeply, which he dreamed not of;
For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot
Of falsehood on his mind which flourished not 530
But in the light of all-beholding truth;
And having stamped this canker on his youth
She had abandoned him — and how much more
Might be his woe, we guessed not; he had store
Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess
From his nice habits and his gentleness;
These were now lost — it were a grief indeed
If he had changed one unsustaining reed
For all that such a man might else adorn.
The colors of his mind seemed yet unworn; 540
For the wild language of his grief was high —
Such as in measure were called poetry.
And I remember one remark which then
Maddalo made. He said—’Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.’
If I had been an unconnected man,
I, from this moment, should have formed some plan
Never to leave sweet Venice, — for to me
It was delight to ride by the lone sea; 550
And then the town is silent — one may write
Or read in gondolas by day or night,
Having the little brazen lamp alight,
Unseen, uninterrupted; books are there,
Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair
Which were twin-born with poetry, and all
We seek in towns, with little to recall
Regrets for the green country. I might sit
In Maddalo’s great palace, and his wit
And subtle talk would cheer the winter night 560
And make me know myself, and the firelight
Would flash upon our faces, till the day
Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay.
But I had friends in London too. The chief
Attraction here was that I sought relief
From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought
Within me—’t was perhaps an idle thought,
But I imagined that if day by day
I watched him, and but seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart 570
With zeal, as men study some stubborn art
For their own good, and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind,
I might reclaim him from this dark estate.
In friendships I had been most fortunate,
Yet never saw I one whom I would call
More willingly my friend; and this was all
Accomplished not; such dreams of baseless good
Oft come and go in crowds and solitude
And leave no trace, — but what I now designed 580
Made, for long years, impression on my mind.
The following morning, urged by my affairs,
I left bright Venice.
After many years,
And many changes, I returned; the name
Of Venice, and its aspect, was the same;
But Maddalo was travelling far away
Among the mountains of Armenia.
His dog was dead. His child had now become
A woman; such as it has been my doom
To meet with few, a wonder of this earth, 590
Where there is little of transcendent worth,
Like one of Shakespeare’s women. Kindly she,
And with a manner beyond courtesy,
Received her father’s friend; and, when I asked
Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked,
And told, as she had heard, the mournful tale:
‘That the poor sufferer’s health began to fail
Two years from my departure, but that then
The lady, who had left him, came again.
Her mien had been imperious, but she now 600
Looked meek — perhaps remorse had brought her low.
Her coming made him better, and they stayed
Together at my father’s — for I played
As I remember with the lady’s shawl;
I might be six years old — but after all
She left him.’ ‘Why, her heart must have been tough.
How did it end?’ ‘And was not this enough?
They met — they parted.’ ‘Child, is there no more?’
‘Something within that interval which bore
The stamp of why they parted, how they met; 610
Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet
Those wrinkled cheeks with youth’s remembered tears,
Ask me no more, but let the silent years
Be closed and cered over their memory,
As yon mute marble where their corpses lie.’
I urged and questioned still; she told me how
All happened — but the cold world shall not know.
PETER BELL THE THIRD
BY MICHING MALLECHO, ESQ.
Is it a party in a parlour,
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punch — some sipping tea;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and all — damned!
“Peter Bell”, by W.
Wordsworth.
OPHELIA. — What means this, my lord?
HAMLET. — Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.
Shakespeare.
Composed at Florence, October, 1819, and for
warded to Hunt (November 2) to be published by C. & J. Ollier without the author’s name; ultimately printed by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of the “Poetical Works”, 1839. A skit by John Hamilton Reynolds, “Peter Bell, a Lyrical Ballad”, had already appeared (April, 1819), a few days before the publication of Wordsworth’s “Peter Bell, a Tale”. These productions were reviewed in Leigh Hunt’s “Examiner” (April 26, May 3, 1819); and to the entertainment derived from his perusal of Hunt’s criticisms the composition of Shelley’s “Peter Bell the Third” is chiefly owing.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE.
PART 1. DEATH.
PART 2. THE DEVIL.
PART 3. HELL.
PART 4. SIN.
PART 5. GRACE.
PART 6. DAMNATION.
PART 7. DOUBLE DAMNATION.
PETER BELL THE THIRD
DEDICATION.
TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE YOUNGER, H.F.
Dear Tom,
Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness.
You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well — it was he who presented me to two of the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung from this introduction to his brothers. And in presenting him to you, I have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is considerably the dullest of the three.
There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of the Peter Bells, that if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter Bells; they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at length illustrated to the satisfaction of all parties in the theological world, by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell.
Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes colours like a chameleon, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus of a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound; then dull; then prosy and dull; and now dull — oh so very dull! it is an ultra-legitimate dulness.
You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the
Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in
‘this world which is’ — so Peter informed us before his conversion to
“White Obi” —
‘The world of all of us, AND WHERE
WE FIND OUR HAPPINESS, OR NOT AT ALL.’
Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this sublime piece; the orb of my moonlike 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.’
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 68