Selected Poems and Prose Read Online

Wordsworth.

Ophelia: What means this, my lord?

Hamlet: Marry, this is miching mallecho;

      it means mischief.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Death

The Devil

Hell

Sin

Grace

Damnation

Double Damnation

DEDICATION

To Thomas Brown Esqr., the younger, H. F. &c. &c.

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 be forced to confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dullness.

You know Mr. Examiner Hunt. That murderous and smiling villain at the mere sound of whose voice our susceptible friend the Quarterly fell into a paroxysm of eleutherophobia and foamed so much acrid gall that it burned the carpet in Mr. Murray’s upper room, and eating a hole in the floor fell like rain upon our poor friend’s head, who was scampering from room to room like a bear with a swarm of bees on his nose:—it caused an incurable ulcer and our poor friend has worn a wig ever since. Well, this monkey suckled with tiger’s milk, this odious thief, liar, scoundrel, coxcomb and monster presented me to two of the Mr. Bells. Seeing me in his presence they of course uttered very few words and those with much caution. I scarcely need observe that they only kept company with him—at least I can certainly answer for one of them—in order to observe whether they could not borrow colours from any particulars of his private life for the denunciation they mean to make of him, as the member of an ‘infamous and black conspiracy for diminishing the authority of that venerable canon, which forbids any man to marry his grandmother’; the effect of which on this our moral and religious nation is likely to answer the purpose of the contrivers. 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, 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 droll; then prosy and dull; and now dull—o so dull!—it is an ultra-legitimate dullness.

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 whilst 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’.

Your works indeed, dear Tom, Sell better; but mine are far superior; the public is no judge: posterity sets all to rights.

Allow me to observe that so much has been written of Peter Bell that the present history can be considered only, like the Iliad, as a continuation of that series of cyclic poems which have already been candidates for bestowing immortality upon, at the same time that they receive it from, his character and adventures. In this point of view, I have violated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a conjunction; the full stop which closes the poem continued by me, being, like the full stops at the end of the Iliad and the Odyssey, a full stop of a very qualified import.

Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges, you will receive from them; and in the firm expectation that when London shall be the habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream,—some transatlantic commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism, the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges, and of their historians,

I remain, Dear Tom

Yours sincerely

Miching Mallecho

December 1, 1819

P. S. Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of this publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable street.

Prologue

Peter Bells, one, two and three,

O’er the wide world wandering be:—

First, the antenatal Peter,

Wrapt in weeds of the same metre,

5The so long predestined raiment

Clothed in which to walk his way meant

The second Peter; whose ambition

Is to link the proposition

As the mean of two extremes—

10(This was learnt from Aldric’s themes)

Shielding from the guilt of schism

The orthodoxal syllogism:

The first Peter—he who was

Like the shadow in the glass

15Of the second, yet unripe,

His substantial antitype:—

Then came Peter Bell the Second,

Who henceforward must be reckoned

The body of a double soul—

20And that portion of the whole

Without which the rest would seem

Ends of a disjointed dream.—

And the third is he who has

O’er the grave been forced to pass

25To the other side, which is,—

Go and try else,— just like this.

Peter Bell the First was Peter

Smugger, milder, softer, neater,

Like the soul before it is

30Born from that world into this.

The next Peter Bell was he

Predevote like you and me

To good or evil as may come;

His was the severer doom,—

35For he was an evil Cotter

And a polygamic Potter.*

And the last is Peter Bell

Damned since our first Parents fell,

Damned eternally to Hell—

40Surely he deserves it well!

Part First

Death

And Peter Bell, when he had been

   With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,

Grew serious—from his dress and mien

’Twas very plainly to be seen

5   Peter was quite reformed.

His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;

   His accent caught a nasal twang;

He oiled his hair;† there might be heard

The grace of God in every word

10   Which Peter said or sang.

But Peter now grew old, and had

   An ill no doctor could unravel;

His torments almost drove him mad;—

Some said it was a fever bad—

15   Some swore it was the gravel.

His holy friends then came about

   And with long preaching and persuasion,

Convinced the patient, that without

The smallest shadow of a doubt

20   He was predestined to damnation.

They said:—‘Thy name is Peter Bell;

   Thy skin is of a brimstone hue;

Alive or dead—aye, sick or well—

The one God made to rhyme with hell;

25   The other, I think, rhymes with you.’

Then Peter set up such a yell!—

   The nurse, who with some water gruel

Was climbing up the stairs as well

As her old legs could climb them—fell,

30   And broke them both—the fall was cruel.

The Parson from the casement leapt

   Into the lake of Windermere—

And many an eel—though no adept

In God’s right reason for it—kept

35   Gnawing his kidneys half a year.

And all the rest rushed through the door

   And tumbled over one another,

And broke their skulls.—Upon the floor

Meanwhile sate Peter Bell, and swore,

40   And cursed his father and his Mother,

And raved of God, and sin, and death,

   Blaspheming like an infidel;

And said, that with his clenched teeth,

He’d seize the Earth from underneath,

45   And drag it with him down to Hell.

As he was speaking came a spasm,

   And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder,

—Like one who sees a strange phantasm

He lay,—there was a silent chasm

50   Between his upper jaw and under.

And yellow death lay on his face;

   And a fixed smile that was not human

Told, as I understand the case,

That he was gone to the wrong place:—

55   I heard all this from the old woman.

Then there came down from Langdale Pike

   A cloud with lightning, wind and hail;

It swept over the mountains like

An Ocean,—and I heard it strike

60   The woods and crags of Grasmere vale.

And I saw the black storm come

   Nearer, minute after minute,

Its thunder made the cataracts dumb,

With hiss, and clash, and hollow hum

65   It neared as if the Devil was in it.

The Devil was in it:—he had bought

   Peter for half a crown; and when

The storm which bore him vanished, nought

That in the house that storm had caught

70   Was ever seen again.

The gaping neighbours came next day—

   They found all vanished from the shore:

The Bible, whence he used to pray

Half scorched under a hen-coop lay;

75   Smashed glass—and nothing more!

Part Second

The Devil

The Devil, I safely can aver,

   Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting;

Nor is he, as some sages swear,

A spirit, neither here nor there,

80   In nothing—yet in every thing.

He is—what we are; for sometimes

   The Devil is a gentleman;

At others a bard bartering rhymes

For sack; a statesman spinning crimes,

85   A swindler, living as he can;

A thief who cometh in the night,

   With whole boots and net pantaloons,

Like someone whom it were not right

To mention;—or the luckless wight

90   From whom he steals nine silver spoons.

But in this case he did appear

   Like a slop-merchant from Wapping

And with smug face, and eye severe

On every side did perk and peer

95   Till he saw Peter dead or napping.

He had on an upper Benjamin

   (For he was of the driving schism)

In the which he wrapped his skin

From the storm he travelled in,

100   For fear of rheumatism.

He called the ghost out of the corse;—

   It was exceedingly like Peter,—

Only its voice was hollow and hoarse—

It had a queerish look of course—

105   Its dress too was a little neater.

The Devil knew not, his name and lot;

   Peter knew not that he was Bell:

Each had an upper stream of thought

Which made all seem as it was not;

110   Fitting itself to all things well.

Peter thought he had parents dear,

   Brothers, sisters, cousins, cronies,

In the fens of Lincolnshire;

He perhaps had found them there

115   Had he gone and boldly shown his

Solemn phiz in his own village;

   Where he thought, oft when a boy

He’d clombe the orchard walls to pillage

The produce of his neighbours’ tillage

120   With marvellous pride and joy.

And the Devil thought he had,

   ’Mid the misery and confusion

Of an unjust war, just made

A fortune by the gainful trade

125Of giving soldiers rations bad—

   The world is full of strange delusion—

That he had a mansion planned

   In a square like Grosvenor square,

That he was aping fashion, and

130That he now came to Westmorland

   To see what was romantic there.

And all this, though quite ideal,—

   Ready at a breath to vanish,—

Was a state not more unreal

135Than the peace he could not feel

   Or the care he could not banish.

After a little conversation

   The Devil told Peter, if he chose

He’d bring him to the world of fashion

140By giving him a situation

   In his own service—and new clothes.

And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,

   And after waiting some few days

For a new livery—dirty yellow

145Turned up with black—the wretched fellow

   Was bowled to Hell on the Devil’s chaise.

Part Third

Hell

Hell is a city much like London;—

   A populous and a smoky city;

There are all sorts of people undone

150And there is little or no fun done;

   Small justice shown, and still less pity.

There is a Castles, and a Canning,

   A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh;

All sorts of caitiff corpses planning

155All sorts of cozening for trepanning

   Corpses less corrupt than they.

There is a * * *, who has lost

   His wits, or sold them, none knows which:

He walks about a double ghost,

160And though as thin as Fraud almost—

   Ever grows more grim and rich.

There is a Chancery Court; a King;

   A manufacturing mob; a set

Of thieves who by themselves are sent

165Similar thieves to represent;

   An Army;—and a public debt.

Which last is a scheme of Paper money,

   And means—being interpreted—

‘Bees keep your wax—give us the honey

170And we will plant while skies are sunny

   Flowers, which in winter serve instead.’

There is great talk of Revolution—

   And a great chance of Despotism—

German soldiers—camps—confusion—

175Tumults—lotteries—rage—delusion—

   Gin—suicide and Methodism;

Taxes too, on wine and bread,

   And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese

From which those patriots pure are fed

180Who gorge before they reel to bed

   The tenfold essence of all these.

There are mincing women, mewing,

   (Like cats, who amant miserè,)*

Of their own virtue, and pursuing

185Their gentler sisters to that ruin,

   Without which—what were chastity?†

Lawyers—judges—old hobnobbers

   Are there—Bailiffs—Chancellors—

Bishops—great and little robbers—

190Rhymesters—pamphleteers—stock jobbers—

   Men of glory in the wars,—

Things whose trade is, over ladies

   To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,

Till all that is divine in woman

195Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman,

   Crucified ’twixt a smile and whimper.

Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,

   Frowning, preaching—such a riot!

Each with never ceasing labour

200Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour

   Cheating his own heart of quiet.

And all these, meet at levees;—

   Dinners convivial and political;—

Suppers of epic poets;—teas,

205Where small talk dies in agonies;—

   Breakfasts professional and critical;—

Lunches and snacks so aldermanic

   That one would furnish forth ten dinners,

Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic

210Lest news Russ, Dutch or Alemannic

   Should make some losers, and some winners;—

At conversazioni—balls—

   Conventicles and drawing-rooms—

Courts of law—committees—calls

215Of a morning—clubs—book stalls—

   Churches—masquerades and tombs.

And this is Hell—and in this smother

   All are damnable and damned;

Each one damning, damns the other;

220They are damned by one another,

   By none other are they damned.

’Tis a lie to say, ‘God damns!’*

   Where was Heaven’s Attorney General

When they first gave out such flams?

225Let there be an end of shams;

   They are mines of poisonous mineral.

Statesmen damn themselves to be

   Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls

To the auction of a fee:

230Churchmen damn themselves to see

   God’s sweet love in burning coals.

The rich are damned beyond all cure

   To taunt, and starve, and trample on

The weak, and wretched: and the poor

235Damn their broken hearts to endure

   Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.

Sometimes the poor are damned indeed

   To take,—not means for being blest,—

But Cobbett’s snuff, revenge; that weed

240From which the worms that it doth feed

   Squeeze less than they before possessed.

And some few, like we know who,

   Damned—but God alone knows why—

To believe their minds are given

245To make this ugly Hell a Heaven;

   In which faith they live and die.

Thus, as in a Town plague-stricken,

   Each man be he sound or no

Must indifferently sicken;

250As when day begins to thicken

   None knows a pigeon from a crow,—

So good and bad, sane and mad,

   The oppressor and the oppressed;

Those who weep to see what others

255Smile to inflict upon their brothers;

   Lovers, haters, worst and best;

All are damned—they breathe an air

   Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:

Each pursues what seems most fair,

260Mining like moles, through mind, and there

Scoop palace-caverns vast, where Care

   In throned state is ever dwelling.

Part Fourth

Sin

Lo! Peter in Hell’s Grosvenor square

   A footman in the Devil’s service!

265And the misjudging world would swear

That every man in service there

   To virtue would prefer vice.

But, Peter, though now damned, was not

   What Peter was before damnation.

270Men oftentimes prepare a lot

Which ere it finds them, is not what

   Suits with their genuine station.

All things that Peter saw and felt

   Had a peculiar aspect to him;

275And when they came within the belt

Of his own nature, seemed to melt

   Like cloud to cloud, into him.

And so the outward world uniting

   To that within him, he became

280Considerably uninviting

To those, who meditation slighting,

   Were moulded in a different frame.

And he scorned them, and they scorned him;

   And he scorned all they did; and they

285Did all that men of their own trim

Are wont to do to please their whim,

   Drinking, lying, swearing, play.

Such were his fellow servants: thus

   His virtue, like our own, was built

290Too much on that indignant fuss

Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us

   To bully out another’s guilt.

He had a mind which was somehow

   At once circumference and centre

295Of all he might or feel or know;

Nothing went ever out, although

   Something did ever enter.

He had as much imagination

   As a pint-pot:—he never could

300Fancy another situation

From which to dart his contemplation,

   Than that wherein he stood.

Yet his was individual mind,

   And new-created all he saw

305In a new manner, and refined

Those new creations, and combined

   Them by a master-spirit’s law,

Thus—though unimaginative,

   An apprehension clear, intense,

310Of his mind’s work, had made alive

The things it wrought on; I believe

   Wakening a sort of thought in sense.

But from the first ’twas Peter’s drift

   To be a kind of moral eunuch;

315He touched the hem of Nature’s shift,

Felt faint—and never dared uplift

   The closest, all-concealing tunic.

She laughed the while, with an arch smile,

   And kissed him with a sister’s kiss,

320And said—‘My best Diogenes,

I love you well—but, if you please,

   Tempt not again my deepest bliss.

‘’Tis you are cold—for I, not coy,

   Yield love for love, frank, warm and true:

325And Burns, a Scottish Peasant boy,—

His errors prove it—knew my joy

   More, learned friend, than you.

‘Bocca baciata non perde ventura

   Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna:—

330So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a

Male prude like you from what you now endure, a

   Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.’

Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe,

   And smoothed his spacious forehead down

335With his broad palm:—’twixt love and fear,

He looked, as he no doubt felt, queer;

   And in his dream sate down.

The Devil was no uncommon creature;

   A leaden-witted thief—just huddled

340Out of the dross and scum of nature;

A toadlike lump of limb and feature,

   With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.

He was that heavy, dull, cold thing

   The Spirit of Evil well may be:

345A drone too base to have a sting;

Who gluts, and limes his lazy wing,

   And calls lust, luxury.

Now he was quite, the kind of wight

   Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,

350Venison, turtle, hock and claret,—

Good cheer—and those who come to share it—

   And best East Indian Madeira!

It was his fancy to invite

   Men of science, wit and learning;

355Who came to lend each other light:—

He proudly thought that his gold’s might

   Had set those spirits burning.

And men of learning, science, wit,

   Considered him as you and I

360Think of some rotten tree, and sit

Lounging and dining under it,

   Exposed to the wide sky.

And all the while, with loose fat smile

   The willing wretch sat winking there,

365Believing ’twas his power that made

That jovial scene—and that all paid

   Homage to his unnoticed chair.

Though to be sure this place was Hell;

   He was the Devil—and all they—

370What though the claret circled well,

And wit, like ocean, rose and fell—

   Were damned eternally.

Part Fifth

Grace

Among the guests who often staid

   Till the Devil’s petit soupers,

375A man there came, fair as a maid,

And Peter noted what he said,

   Standing behind his master’s chair.

He was a mighty poet—and

   A subtle-souled Psychologist;

380All things he seemed to understand

Of old or new—of sea or land—

   But his own mind—which was a mist.

This was a man who might have turned

   Hell into Heaven—and so in gladness

385A Heaven unto himself have earned;

But he in shadows undiscerned

   Trusted,—and damned himself to madness.

He spoke of Poetry, and how

   ‘Divine it was—a light—a love—

390A spirit which like wind doth blow

As it listeth, to and fro;

   A dew rained down from God above,

‘A Power which comes and goes like dream,

   And which none can ever trace—

395Heaven’s light on Earth—Truth’s brightest beam,’

And when he ceased there lay the gleam

   Of those words upon his face.

Now Peter when he heard such talk

   Would, heedless of a broken pate

400Stand like a man asleep, or baulk

Some wishing guest of knife or fork,

   Or drop and break his master’s plate.

At night he oft would start and wake

   Like a lover, and began

405In a wild measure songs to make

On moor, and glen, and rocky lake,

   And on the heart of man;—

And on the universal sky;—

   And the wide earth’s bosom green;—

410And the sweet, strange mystery

Of what beyond these things may lie,

   And yet remain unseen.

For in his thought he visited

   The spots in which, ere dead and damned,

415He his wayward life had led;

Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed

   Which thus his fancy crammed.

And these obscure remembrances

   Stirred such harmony in Peter,

420That whensoever he should please,

He could speak of rocks and trees

   In poetic metre.

For though it was without a sense

   Of memory, yet he remembered well

425Many a ditch and quickset fence;

Of lakes he had intelligence,

   He knew something of heath and fell.

He had also dim recollections

   Of pedlars tramping on their rounds,

430Milk pans and pails, and odd collections

Of saws, and proverbs; and reflections

   Old parsons make in burying-grounds.

But Peter’s verse was clear, and came

   Announcing from the frozen hearth

435Of a cold age, that none might tame

The soul of that diviner flame

   It augured to the Earth:

Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,

   Making that green which late was grey,

440Or like the sudden moon, that stains

Some gloomy chamber’s windowpanes

   With a broad light like day.

For language was in Peter’s hand

   Like clay while he was yet a potter;

445And he made songs for all the land

Sweet both to feel and understand

   As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.

And Mr. ——, the Bookseller,

   Gave twenty pounds for some:—then scorning

450A footman’s yellow coat to wear,

Peter, too proud of heart I fear,

   Instantly gave the Devil warning.

Whereat the Devil took offence,

   And swore in his soul a great oath then,

455‘That for his damned impertinence,

He’d bring him to a proper sense

   Of what was due to gentlemen!’—

Part Sixth

Damnation

‘O, that mine enemy had written

   A book!’—cried Job:—A fearful curse!

460If to the Arab, as the Briton,

’Twas galling to be critic-bitten:—

   The Devil to Peter wished no worse.

When Peter’s next new book found vent,

   The Devil to all the first Reviews

465A copy of it slyly sent

With five-pound note as compliment,

   And this short notice—‘Pray abuse.’

Then seriatim, month and quarter,

   Appeared such mad tirades—One said—

470‘Peter seduced Mrs. Foy’s daughter,

Then drowned the Mother in Ullswater,

   The last thing as he went to bed.’

Another—‘Let him shave his head!

   Where’s Dr. Willis?—Or is he joking?

475What does the rascal mean or hope,

No longer imitating Pope,

   In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?’

One more,—‘Is incest not enough,

   And must there be adultery too?

480Grace after meat? Miscreant and liar!

Thief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! Hell-fire

   Is twenty times too good for you.

‘By that last book of yours WE think

   You’ve double damned yourself to scorn:

485We warned you whilst yet on the brink

You stood. From your black name will shrink

   The babe that is unborn.’

All these Reviews the Devil made

   Up in a parcel, which he had

490Safely to Peter’s house conveyed.

For carriage ten-pence Peter paid—

   Untied them—read them—went half mad.

‘What!’—Cried he,—‘this is my reward

   For nights of thought, and days of toil?

495Do poets, but to be abhorred

By men of whom they never heard,

   Consume their spirits’ oil?

‘What have I done to them?—and Who

   Is Mrs. Foy?—’Tis very cruel

500To speak of me and Betty so!

Adultery! God defend me! Oh!

   I’ve half a mind to fight a duel.

‘Or,’ cried he, a grave look collecting,

   ‘Is it my genius, like the moon,

505Sets those who stand her face inspecting,

(That face within their brain reflecting)

   Like a crazed bell chime, out of tune?’

For Peter did not know the town,

   But thought, as country readers do,

510For half a guinea or a crown,

He bought oblivion or renown

   From God’s own voice* in a review.

All Peter did on this occasion

   Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.

515It is a dangerous invasion

When Poets criticise: their station

   Is to delight, not pose.

The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair,

   For Born’s translation of Kant’s book;

520A world of words, tail-foremost, where

Right—wrong—false—true—and foul and fair

   As in a lottery wheel are shook.

Five thousand crammed octavo pages

   Of German psychologics,—he

525Who his furor verborum assuages

Thereon, deserves just seven months’ wages

   More than will e’er be due to me.

I looked on them nine several days,

   And then I saw that they were bad;

530A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,—

He never read them;—with amaze

   I found Sir William Drummond had.

When the book came, the Devil sent

   It to ‘P.