PART SECOND.

WE left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river side,

And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.

A happy respite! - but at length

He feels the glimmering of the moon ; Wakes with glazed eye, and feebly sighing – To sink perhaps, where he is lying,

Into a second swoon!

He lifts his head

he sees his staff;

He touches 'tis to him a treasure!

Faint recollection seems to tell

That he is yet where mortals dwell

A thought received with languid pleasure!

His head upon his elbow propped,

Becoming less and less perplexed,

Sky-ward he looks to rock and wood
And then- upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.

Thought he, that is the face of one
In his last sleep securely bound!

So toward the stream his head he bent,
And downward thrust his staff, intent
The river's depth to sound.

Now like a tempest-shattered bark,
That overwhelmed and prostrate lies,
And in a moment to the verge
Is lifted of a foaming surge
Full suddenly the Ass doth rise!

His staring bones all shake with joy
And close by Peter's side he stands:
While Peter o'er the river bends,
The little Ass his neck extends,
And fondly licks his hands."

Such life is in the Ass's eyes—

Such life is in his limbs and ears
That Peter Bell, if he had been

The veriest coward ever seen,

Must now have thrown aside his fears.

Is Peter quietly resigned;

He touches here- he touches there-
And now among the dead man's hair
His sapling Peter has entwined.

And he whom the poor Ass had lost,
The Man who had been four days dead,

Head foremost from the river's bed

And Peter draws him to dry land; And through the brain of Peter pass Some poignant twitches, fast and faster, "No doubt," quoth he, " he is the Master Of this poor miserable Ass!"

The meagre Shadow all this while
What aim is his? what is he doing?

His sudden fit of joy is flown,

--

He on his knees hath laid him down,
As if he were his grief renewing.

But no

his purpose and his wish

The Suppliant shows, well as he can ;
Thought Peter, whatsoe'er betide,
I'll go, and he my way will guide
To the cottage of the drowned man.

Encouraged by this hope, he mounts
Upon the pleased and thankful Ass;
And then, without a moment's stay,
That earnest Creature turned away,
Leaving the body on the grass.

Intent upon his faithful watch,

The Beast four days and nights had past; A sweeter meadow ne'er was seen,

And there the Ass four days had been,

Nor ever once did break his fast!

Yet firm his step, and stout his heart;

The mead is crossed

the quarry's mouth

Is reached—but there the trusty guide Into a thicket turns aside,

And takes his way towards the south.

When hark a burst of doleful sound!
And Peter honestly might say,

The like came never to his ears,

Though he has been, full thirty years,

Nor night-bird chambered in the rocks

Nor wild-cat in a woody glen!

The Ass is startled

and stops short

Right in the middle of the thicket;

And Peter, wont to whistle loud
Whether alone or in a crowd,

Is silent as a silent cricket.