While to the storm they give their weak complaining cry;
Or clap the sleek white pinion to the breast,
And in the restless ocean dip for rest.

Darkness begins to reign. The louder wind Appals the weak and awes the firmer mind;

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But frights not him whom evening and the spray
In part conceal-yon prowler on his way:
Lo! he has something seen; he runs apace,
As if he feared companion in the chase;
He sees his prize, and now he turns again,
Slowly and sorrowing. "Was your search in vain?"
Gruffly he answers, "'T is a sorry sight!
A seaman's body: there'll be more to-night!"

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Hark to those sounds! they're from distress at sea. How quick they come! What terrors may there be! Yes, 't is a driven vessel: I discern

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Lights, signs of terror, gleaming from the stern.
Others behold them too, and from the town
In various parties seamen hurry down.
Their wives pursue and damsels, urged by dread
Lest men so dear be into danger led:

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Their head the gown has hooded, and their call

In this sad night is piercing like the squall;

They feel their kinds of power, and, when they meet,
Chide, fondle, weep, dare, threaten, or intreat.
See! one poor girl, all terror and alarm,

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Has fondly seized upon her lover's arm:

"Thou shalt not venture!" and he answers, "No,

I will not"-still she cries, "Thou shalt not go!"
No need of this: not here the stoutest boat
Can through such breakers, o'er such billows float;
Yet may they view these lights upon the beach,
Which yield them hope whom help can never reach.
From parted clouds the moon her radiance throws
On the wild waves, and all the danger shows;
But shows them beaming in her shining vest,
Terrific splendour! gloom in glory drest!
This for a moment; and then clouds again

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Hide every beam, and fear and darkness reign.

But hear we now those sounds? Do lights appear?
I see them not! the storm alone I hear!

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And, lo, the sailors homeward take their way: Man must endure-let us submit and pray. 1801?-9.

PETER GRIMES

1810.

Old Peter Grimes made fishing his employ;
His wife he cabined with him and his boy,
And seemed that life laborious to enjoy.
To town came quiet Peter with his fish,
And had of all a civil word and wish.
He left his trade upon the Sabbath day,
And took young Peter in his hand to pray:

But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,
At first refused, then added his abuse;
His father's love he scorned, his power defied,
But, being drunk, wept sorely when he died.

Yes, then he wept, and to his mind there came
Much of his conduct, and he felt the shame:-
How he had oft the good old man reviled,
And never paid the duty of a child;
How, when the father in his Bible read,
He in contempt and anger left the shed:
"It is the word of life," the parent cried;
"This is the life itself," the boy replied,
And, while old Peter in amazement stood,
Gave the hot spirit to his boiling blood:-
How he, with oath and furious speech, began
To prove his freedom and assert the man;
And when the parent checked his impious rage,
How he had cursed the tyranny of age-
Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious blow
On his bare head and laid his parent low;

The father groaned; "If thou art old," said he,

"And hast a son-thou wilt remember me;

Thy mother left me in an happy time,

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Thou kill'dst not her-Heav'n spares the double crime." On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief,

This he revolved, and drank for his relief.

Now lived the youth in freedom, but debarred From constant pleasure, and he thought it hard;

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ΙΟ

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Hard that he could not every wish obey,
But must awhile relinquish ale and play;
Hard that he could not to his cards attend,
But must acquire the money he would spend.
With greedy eye he looked on all he saw;
He knew not justice, and he laughed at law:
On all he marked he stretched his ready hand;
He fished by water, and he filched by land.
Oft in the night has Peter dropped his oar,
Fled from his boat, and sought for prey on shore;
Oft up the hedge-row glided, on his back
Bearing the orchard's produce in a sack,

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Or farm-yard load, tugged fiercely from the stack;
And as these wrongs to greater numbers rose,
The more he looked on all men as his foes.

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He built a mud-walled hovel, where he kept
His various wealth, and there he oft-times slept.
But no success could please his cruel soul:
He wished for one to trouble and control;
He wanted some obedient boy to stand
And bear the blow of his outrageous hand,
And hoped to find in some propitious hour
A feeling creature subject to his power.

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Peter had heard there were in London then-
Still have they being!-workhouse-clearing men,
Who, undisturbed by feelings just or kind,
Would parish-boys to needy tradesmen bind;
They in their want a trifling sum would take,
And toiling slaves of piteous orphans make.
Such Peter sought; and when a lad was found,
The sum was dealt him, and the slave was bound.
Some few in town observed in Peter's trap

бо

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A boy, with jacket blue and woollen cap:
But none enquired how Peter used the rope,

Or what the bruise that made the stripling stoop;

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None could the ridges on his back behold,
None sought him shiv'ring in the winter's cold;
None put the question, "Peter, dost thou give

The boy his food? What, man, the lad must live!

Consider, Peter: let the child have bread;

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He'll serve thee better if he's stroked and fed."

None reasoned thus; and some, on hearing cries,

Said calmly, "Grimes is at his exercise."

Pined, beaten, cold, pinched, threatened, and abused, His efforts punished and his food refused,

Awake tormented, soon aroused from sleep,
Struck if he wept and yet compelled to weep,

The trembling boy dropped down and strove to pray,
Received a blow, and trembling turned away,
Or sobbed and hid his piteous face, while he,
The savage master, grinned in horrid glee:
He'd now the power he ever loved to show,
A feeling being subject to his blow.
Thus lived the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,
His tears despised, his supplications vain;
Compelled by fear to lie, by need to steal,
His bed uneasy, and unblest his meal,

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For three sad years the boy his tortures bore,
And then his pains and trials were no more.

"How died he, Peter?" when the people said, He growled, "I found him lifeless in his bed,"

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Then tried for softer tone, and sighed, "Poor Sam is dead."
Yet murmurs were there, and some questions asked-
How he was fed, how punished, and how tasked?
Much they suspected, but they little proved,
And Peter passed untroubled and unmoved.

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Another boy with equal ease was found,

The money granted, and the victim bound. And what his fate? One night it chanced he fell From the boat's mast and perished in her well, Where fish were living kept and where the boy (So reasoned men) could not himself destroy. "Yes! so it was," said Peter; “in his play (For he was idle both by night and day) He climbed the main-mast and then fell below;" Then showed his corpse, and pointed to the blow. "What said the jury?" They were long in doubt, But sturdy Peter faced the matter out;

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So they dismissed him, saying at the time,

"Keep fast your hatchway when you've boys who

climb."

This hit the conscience, and he coloured more

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Than for the closest questions put before.
Thus all his fears the verdict set aside,
And at the slave-shop Peter still applied.
Then came a boy of manners soft and mild.

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Our seamen's wives with grief beheld the child:

All thought (the poor themselves) that he was one

Of gentle blood, some noble sinner's son,
Who had, belike, deceived some humble maid,
Whom he had first seduced and then betrayed.
However this, he seemed a gracious lad,
In grief submissive and with patience sad.
Passive he laboured, till his slender frame
Bent with his loads, and he at length was lame.
Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long
The grossest insult and the foulest wrong;
But there were causes: in the town they gave
Fire, food, and comfort to the gentle slave;
And though stern Peter, with a cruel hand
And knotted rope, enforced the rude command,
Yet he considered what he'd lately felt,
And his vile blows with selfish pity dealt.

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One day such draughts the cruel fisher made
He could not vend them in his borough-trade,
But sailed for London-mart. The boy was ill,
But ever humbled to his master's will;
And on the river, where they smoothly sailed,
He strove with terror and awhile prevailed;
But, new to danger on the angry sea,
He clung affrightened to his master's knee.
The boat grew leaky, and the wind was strong,
Rough was the passage, and the time was long;
His liquor failed, and Peter's wrath arose-
No more is known: the rest we must suppose,
Or learn of Peter. Peter, says he, "spied
The stripling's danger, and for harbour tried;
Meantime the fish, and then th' apprentice died."
The pitying women raised a clamour round,

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And weeping said, “Thou hast thy 'prentice drowned."
Now the stern man was summoned to the hall,
To tell his tale before the burghers all;

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He gave th' account, professed the lad he loved,