Such were his fellow-servants; thus
His virtue, like our own, was built
Too much on that indignant fuss 290
Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us
To bully one another’s guilt.
7.
He had a mind which was somehow
At once circumference and centre
Of all he might or feel or know; 295
Nothing went ever out, although
Something did ever enter.
8.
He had as much imagination
As a pint-pot; — he never could
Fancy another situation, 300
From which to dart his contemplation,
Than that wherein he stood.
9.
Yet his was individual mind,
And new created all he saw
In a new manner, and refined 305
Those new creations, and combined
Them, by a master-spirit’s law.
10.
Thus — though unimaginative —
An apprehension clear, intense,
Of his mind’s work, had made alive 310
The things it wrought on; I believe
Wakening a sort of thought in sense.
11.
But from the first ‘twas Peter’s drift
To be a kind of moral eunuch,
He touched the hem of Nature’s shift, 315
Felt faint — and never dared uplift
The closest, all-concealing tunic.
12.
She laughed the while, with an arch smile,
And kissed him with a sister’s kiss,
And said — My best Diogenes, 320
I love you well — but, if you please,
Tempt not again my deepest bliss.
13.
‘‘Tis you are cold — for I, not coy,
Yield love for love, frank, warm, and true;
And Burns, a Scottish peasant boy — 325
His errors prove it — knew my joy
More, learned friend, than you.
14.
‘Boeca bacciata non perde ventura,
Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna: —
So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a 330
Male prude, like you, from what you now endure, a
Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.
15.
Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe.
And smoothed his spacious forehead down
With his broad palm;—’twixt love and fear, 335
He looked, as he no doubt felt, queer,
And in his dream sate down.
16.
The Devil was no uncommon creature;
A leaden-witted thief — just huddled
Out of the dross and scum of nature; 340
A toad-like lump of limb and feature,
With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.
17.
He was that heavy, dull, cold thing,
The spirit of evil well may be:
A drone too base to have a sting; 345
Who gluts, and grimes his lazy wing,
And calls lust, luxury.
18.
Now he was quite the kind of wight
Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,
Venison, turtle, hock, and claret, — 350
Good cheer — and those who come to share it —
And best East Indian madeira!
19.
It was his fancy to invite
Men of science, wit, and learning,
Who came to lend each other light; 355
He proudly thought that his gold’s might
Had set those spirits burning.
20.
And men of learning, science, wit,
Considered him as you and I
Think of some rotten tree, and sit 360
Lounging and dining under it,
Exposed to the wide sky.
21.
And all the while with loose fat smile,
The willing wretch sat winking there,
Believing ‘twas his power that made 365
That jovial scene — and that all paid
Homage to his unnoticed chair.
22.
Though to be sure this place was Hell;
He was the Devil — and all they —
What though the claret circled well, 370
And wit, like ocean, rose and fell? —
Were damned eternally.
PART 5. GRACE.
1.
Among the guests who often stayed
Till the Devil’s petits-soupers,
A man there came, fair as a maid, 375
And Peter noted what he said,
Standing behind his master’s chair.
2.
He was a mighty poet — and
A subtle-souled psychologist;
All things he seemed to understand, 380
Of old or new — of sea or land —
But his own mind — which was a mist.
3.
This was a man who might have turned
Hell into Heaven — and so in gladness
A Heaven unto himself have earned; 385
But he in shadows undiscerned
Trusted. — and damned himself to madness.
4.
He spoke of poetry, and how
‘Divine it was — a light — a love —
A spirit which like wind doth blow 390
As it listeth, to and fro;
A dew rained down from God above;
5.
‘A power which comes and goes like dream,
And which none can ever trace —
Heaven’s light on earth — Truth’s brightest beam.’ 395
And when he ceased there lay the gleam
Of those words upon his face.
6.
Now Peter, when he heard such talk,
Would, heedless of a broken pate,
Stand like a man asleep, or balk 400
Some wishing guest of knife or fork,
Or drop and break his master’s plate.
7.
At night he oft would start and wake
Like a lover, and began
In a wild measure songs to make 405
On moor, and glen, and rocky lake,
And on the heart of man —
8.
And on the universal sky —
And the wide earth’s bosom green, —
And the sweet, strange mystery 410
Of what beyond these things may lie,
And yet remain unseen.
9.
For in his thought he visited
The spots in which, ere dead and damned,
He his wayward life had led; 415
Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed
Which thus his fancy crammed.
10.
And these obscure remembrances
Stirred such harmony in Peter,
That, whensoever he should please, 420
He could speak of rocks and trees
In poetic metre.
11.
For though it was without a sense
Of memory, yet he remembered well
Many a ditch and quick-set fence; 425
Of lakes he had intelligence,
He knew something of heath and fell.
12.
He had also dim recollections
Of pedlars tramping on their rounds;
Milk-pans and pails; and odd collections 430
Of saws, and proverbs; and reflections
Old parsons make in burying-grounds.
13.
But Peter’s verse was clear, and came
Announcing from the frozen hearth
Of a cold age, that none might tame 435
The soul of that diviner flame
It augured to the Earth:
14.
Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,
Making that gr
een which late was gray,
Or like the sudden moon, that stains 440
Some gloomy chamber’s window-panes
With a broad light like day.
15.
For language was in Peter’s hand
Like clay while he was yet a potter;
And he made songs for all the land, 445
Sweet both to feel and understand,
As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.
16.
And Mr. — , the bookseller,
Gave twenty pounds for some; — then scorning
A footman’s yellow coat to wear, 450
Peter, too proud of heart, I fear,
Instantly gave the Devil warning.
17.
Whereat the Devil took offence,
And swore in his soul a great oath then,
‘That for his damned impertinence 455
He’d bring him to a proper sense
Of what was due to gentlemen!’
PART 6. DAMNATION.
1.
‘O that mine enemy had written
A book!’ — cried Job: — a fearful curse,
If to the Arab, as the Briton, 460
‘Twas galling to be critic-bitten: —
The Devil to Peter wished no worse.
2.
When Peter’s next new book found vent,
The Devil to all the first Reviews
A copy of it slyly sent, 465
With five-pound note as compliment,
And this short notice—’Pray abuse.’
3.
Then seriatim, month and quarter,
Appeared such mad tirades. — One said —
‘Peter seduced Mrs. Foy’s daughter, 470
Then drowned the mother in Ullswater,
The last thing as he went to bed.’
4.
Another—’Let him shave his head!
Where’s Dr. Willis? — Or is he joking?
What does the rascal mean or hope, 475
No longer imitating Pope,
In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?’
5.
One more, ‘Is incest not enough?
And must there be adultery too?
Grace after meat? Miscreant and Liar! 480
Thief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! hell-fire
Is twenty times too good for you.
6.
‘By that last book of yours WE think
You’ve double damned yourself to scorn;
We warned you whilst yet on the brink 485
You stood. From your black name will shrink
The babe that is unborn.’
7.
All these Reviews the Devil made
Up in a parcel, which he had
Safely to Peter’s house conveyed. 490
For carriage, tenpence Peter paid —
Untied them — read them — went half mad.
8.
‘What!’ cried he, ‘this is my reward
For nights of thought, and days, of toil?
Do poets, but to be abhorred 495
By men of whom they never heard,
Consume their spirits’ oil?
9.
‘What have I done to them? — and who
IS Mrs. Foy? ‘Tis very cruel
To speak of me and Betty so! 500
Adultery! God defend me! Oh!
I’ve half a mind to fight a duel.
10.
‘Or,’ cried he, a grave look collecting,
‘Is it my genius, like the moon,
Sets those who stand her face inspecting, 505
That face within their brain reflecting,
Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?’
11.
For Peter did not know the town,
But thought, as country readers do,
For half a guinea or a crown, 510
He bought oblivion or renown
From God’s own voice (1) in a review.
12.
All Peter did on this occasion
Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.
It is a dangerous invasion 515
When poets criticize; their station
Is to delight, not pose.
13.
The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair
For Born’s translation of Kant’s book;
A world of words, tail foremost, where 520
Right — wrong — false — true — and foul — and fair
As in a lottery-wheel are shook.
14.
Five thousand crammed octavo pages
Of German psychologics, — he
Who his furor verborum assuages 525
Thereon, deserves just seven months’ wages
More than will e’er be due to me.
15.
I looked on them nine several days,
And then I saw that they were bad;
A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise, — 530
He never read them; — with amaze
I found Sir William Drummond had.
16.
When the book came, the Devil sent
It to P. Verbovale (2), Esquire,
With a brief note of compliment, 535
By that night’s Carlisle mail. It went,
And set his soul on fire.
17.
Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,
Made him beyond the bottom see
Of truth’s clear well — when I and you, Ma’am, 540
Go, as we shall do, subter humum,
We may know more than he.
18.
Now Peter ran to seed in soul
Into a walking paradox;
For he was neither part nor whole, 545
Nor good, nor bad — nor knave nor fool;
— Among the woods and rocks
19.
Furious he rode, where late he ran,
Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;
Turned to a formal puritan, 550
A solemn and unsexual man, —
He half believed “White Obi”.
20.
This steed in vision he would ride,
High trotting over nine-inch bridges,
With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride, 555
Mocking and mowing by his side —
A mad-brained goblin for a guide —
Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.
21.
After these ghastly rides, he came
Home to his heart, and found from thence 560
Much stolen of its accustomed flame;
His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame
Of their intelligence.
22.
To Peter’s view, all seemed one hue;
He was no Whig, he was no Tory; 565
No Deist and no Christian he; —
He got so subtle, that to be
Nothing, was all his glory.
23.
One single point in his belief
From his organization sprung, 570
The heart-enrooted faith, the chief
Ear in his doctrines’ blighted sheaf,
That ‘Happiness is wrong’;
24.
So thought Calvin and Dominic;
So think their fierce successors, who 575
Even now would neither stint nor stick
Our flesh from off our bones to pick,
If they might ‘do their do.’
25.
His morals thus were undermined: —
The old Peter — the hard, old Potter — 580
Was born anew within his mind;
He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,
As when he tramped beside the Otter. (1)
26.
In the death hues of agony
Lambently flashing from a fish, 585
Now Peter felt amused to see
Shades like a rainbow’s rise and flee,
Mixed with a certain hungry wish(2).
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27.
So in his Country’s dying face
He looked — and, lovely as she lay, 590
Seeking in vain his last embrace,
Wailing her own abandoned case,
With hardened sneer he turned away:
28.
And coolly to his own soul said; —
‘Do you not think that we might make 595
A poem on her when she’s dead: —
Or, no — a thought is in my head —
Her shroud for a new sheet I’ll take:
29.
‘My wife wants one. — Let who will bury
This mangled corpse! And I and you, 600
My dearest Soul, will then make merry,
As the Prince Regent did with Sherry,—’
‘Ay — and at last desert me too.’
30.
And so his Soul would not be gay,
But moaned within him; like a fawn 605
Moaning within a cave, it lay
Wounded and wasting, day by day,
Till all its life of life was gone.
31.
As troubled skies stain waters clear,
The storm in Peter’s heart and mind 610
Now made his verses dark and queer:
They were the ghosts of what they were,
Shaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.
32.
For he now raved enormous folly,
Of Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves, 615
‘Twould make George Colman melancholy
To have heard him, like a male Molly,
Chanting those stupid staves.
33.
Yet the Reviews, who heaped abuse
On Peter while he wrote for freedom, 620
So soon as in his song they spy
The folly which soothes tyranny,
Praise him, for those who feed ‘em.
34.
‘He was a man, too great to scan; —
A planet lost in truth’s keen rays: — 625
His virtue, awful and prodigious; —
He was the most sublime, religious,
Pure-minded Poet of these days.’
35.
As soon as he read that, cried Peter,
‘Eureka! I have found the way 630
To make a better thing of metre
Than e’er was made by living creature
Up to this blessed day.’
36.
Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil; —
In one of which he meekly said: 635
‘May Carnage and Slaughter,
Thy niece and thy daughter,
May Rapine and Famine,
Thy gorge ever cramming,
Glut thee with living and dead! 640
37.
‘May Death and Damnation,
And Consternation,
Flit up from Hell with pure intent!
Slash them at Manchester,
Glasgow, Leeds, and Chester; 645
Drench all with blood from Avon to Trent.
38.
‘Let thy body-guard yeomen
Hew down babes and women,
And laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!
When Moloch in Jewry 650
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 70