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Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power

Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!

Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,

Oblivion may not cover

VIII.

All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time.
Orphean Insight! truth's undaunted lover,
To the first leagues of tutored passion climb,
When Music deigned within this grosser sphere
Her subtle essence to enfold,

And voice and shell drew forth a tear
Softer than Nature's self could mould.

Yet strenuous was the infant Age:
Art, daring because souls could feel,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless Stirred nowhere but an urgent equipage

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 Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.

VI.

How oft along thy mazes,
Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod !
O Thou, through whom the temple rings with praises,
And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God,
Betray not by the cozenage of sense
Thy votaries, wooingly resigned

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,
Soothe it into patience,-stay
The uplifted arm of Suicide;

And let some mood of thine in firm array
Knit every thought the impending issue needs,
Ere martyr burns, or patriot bleeds!

VII.

As Conscience, to the centre

Of being, smites with irresistible pain
So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter
The mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain,

Of rapt imagination sped her march
Through the realms of woe and weal:
Hell to the lyre bowed low; the upper arch
Rejoiced that clamorous spell and magic verse
Her wan disasters could disperse.

IX.

The GIFT to king Amphion
That walled a city with its melody

Was for belief no dream:-thy skill, Arion!
Could humanise the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,

Leave for one chant;-the dulcet sound
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,
And listening dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides
A proud One docile as a managed horse;
And singing, while the accordant hand
Sweeps his harp, the Master rides ;

So shall he touch at length a friendly strand,
And he, with his preserver, shine star-bright
In memory, through silent night.

X.

The pipe of Pan, to shepherds

Couched in the shadow of Manalian pines,
Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards,
That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines,

How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence, and Silenus swang

This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned.
To life, to life give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid

Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;

The convict's summons in the steeple's knell;

6 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:
From the babe's first cry to voice of regal city,
Rolling a solemn sea-like bass, that floats
Far as the woodlands-with the trill to blend
Of that shy songstress, whose love-tale
Might tempt an angel to descend,
While hovering o'er the moonlight vale.

Ye wandering Utterances, has earth no scheme,
No scale of moral music-to unite
Powers that survive but in the faintest dream
Of memory? O that ye might stoop to bear
Chains, such precious chains of sight

As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear!
O for a balance fit the truth to tell

Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!

By one pervading spirit

XII.

Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As sages taught, where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old.

The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill

With everlasting harmony;

The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know

That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round;
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

XIIL

Break forth into thanksgiving,

Ye banded instruments of wind and chords;
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,

Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
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
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls,

All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
Into the ear of God, their Lord!

XIV.

A Voice to Light gave Being;

To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler;
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)

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.

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MY DEAR FRIEND,

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., P.L., ETC. ETC.

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,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,

For shape just like the crescent-moon.

And now I have a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon:

Fast through the clouds my boat can sail ;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,
To see how ye are all distrest,
Till my ribs ached, I'd laugh at you!

Away we go, my Boat and I-
Frail man ne'er sate in such another;
Whether among the winds we strive,
Or deep into the clouds we dive,
Each is contented with the other.

Away we go and what care we
For treasons, tumults, and for wars!
We are as calm in our delight
As is the crescent-moon so bright
Among the scattered stars.

Up goes my Boat among the stars
Through many a breathless field of light,
Through many a long blue field of ether,
Leaving ten thousand stars beneath her:
Up goes my little Boat so bright!

The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull-
We pry among them all; have shot
High o'er the red-haired race of Mars,
Covered from top to toe with scars;
Such company I like it not !

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