Peter Bell The Third: Prologue
Peter Bells, one, two and three,
O'er the wide world wandering be.-- First, the antenatal Peter, Wrapped in weeds of the same metre, The so-long-predestined raiment _5 Clothed in which to walk his way meant The second Peter; whose ambition Is to link the proposition, As the mean of two extremes-- (This was learned from Aldric's themes) _10 Shielding from the guilt of schism The orthodoxal syllogism; The First Peter--he who was Like the shadow in the glass Of the second, yet unripe, _15 His substantial antitype.--
Then came Peter Bell the Second,
Who henceforward must be reckoned The body of a double soul, And that portion of the whole _20 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 To the other side, which is,-- _25 Go and try else,--just like this.
Peter Bell the First was Peter
Smugger, milder, softer, neater, Like the soul before it is Born from THAT world into THIS. _30 The next Peter Bell was he, Predevote, like you and me, To good or evil as may come; His was the severer doom,-- For he was an evil Cotter, _35 And a polygamic Potter. And the last is Peter Bell, Damned since our first parents fell, Damned eternally to Hell-- Surely he deserves it well! _40
NOTES:
_10 Aldric's i.e. Aldrich's--a spelling adopted here by Woodberry.
(_36 The oldest scholiasts read--
A dodecagamic Potter. This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,--but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])
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