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Percy Shelley: Poems

Peter Bell The Third: Part 6


DAMNATION.


1.

'O that mine enemy had written

A book!'--cried Job:--a fearful curse,

If to the Arab, as the Briton, _460

'Twas galling to be critic-bitten:--

The Devil to Peter wished no worse.


2.

When Peter's next new book found vent,

The Devil to all the first Reviews

A copy of it slyly sent, _465

With five-pound note as compliment,

And this short notice--'Pray abuse.'


3.

Then seriatim, month and quarter,

Appeared such mad tirades.--One said--

'Peter seduced Mrs. Foy's daughter, _470

Then drowned the mother in Ullswater,

The last thing as he went to bed.'


4.

Another--'Let him shave his head!

Where's Dr. Willis?--Or is he joking?

What does the rascal mean or hope, _475

No longer imitating Pope,

In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?'


5.

One more, 'Is incest not enough?

And must there be adultery too?

Grace after meat? Miscreant and Liar! _480

Thief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! hell-fire

Is twenty times too good for you.


6.

'By that last book of yours WE think

You've double damned yourself to scorn;

We warned you whilst yet on the brink _485

You stood. From your black name will shrink

The babe that is unborn.'


7.

All these Reviews the Devil made

Up in a parcel, which he had

Safely to Peter's house conveyed. _490

For carriage, tenpence Peter paid--

Untied them--read them--went half mad.


8.

'What!' cried he, 'this is my reward

For nights of thought, and days, of toil?

Do poets, but to be abhorred _495

By men of whom they never heard,

Consume their spirits' oil?


9.

'What have I done to them?--and who

IS Mrs. Foy? 'Tis very cruel

To speak of me and Betty so! _500

Adultery! God defend me! Oh!

I've half a mind to fight a duel.


10.

'Or,' cried he, a grave look collecting,

'Is it my genius, like the moon,

Sets those who stand her face inspecting, _505

That face within their brain reflecting,

Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?'


11.

For Peter did not know the town,

But thought, as country readers do,

For half a guinea or a crown, _510

He bought oblivion or renown

From God's own voice (1) in a review.


12.

All Peter did on this occasion

Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.

It is a dangerous invasion _515

When poets criticize; their station

Is to delight, not pose.


13.

The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair

For Born's translation of Kant's book;

A world of words, tail foremost, where _520

Right--wrong--false--true--and foul--and fair

As in a lottery-wheel are shook.


14.

Five thousand crammed octavo pages

Of German psychologics,--he

Who his furor verborum assuages _525

Thereon, deserves just seven months' wages

More than will e'er be due to me.


15.

I looked on them nine several days,

And then I saw that they were bad;

A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,-- _530

He never read them;--with amaze

I found Sir William Drummond had.


16.

When the book came, the Devil sent

It to P. Verbovale (2), Esquire,

With a brief note of compliment, _535

By that night's Carlisle mail. It went,

And set his soul on fire.


17.

Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,

Made him beyond the bottom see

Of truth's clear well--when I and you, Ma'am, _540

Go, as we shall do, subter humum,

We may know more than he.


18.

Now Peter ran to seed in soul

Into a walking paradox;

For he was neither part nor whole, _545

Nor good, nor bad--nor knave nor fool;

--Among the woods and rocks


19.

Furious he rode, where late he ran,

Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;

Turned to a formal puritan, _550

A solemn and unsexual man,--

He half believed "White Obi".


20.

This steed in vision he would ride,

High trotting over nine-inch bridges,

With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride, _555

Mocking and mowing by his side--

A mad-brained goblin for a guide--

Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.


21.

After these ghastly rides, he came

Home to his heart, and found from thence _560

Much stolen of its accustomed flame;

His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame

Of their intelligence.


22.

To Peter's view, all seemed one hue;

He was no Whig, he was no Tory; _565

No Deist and no Christian he;--

He got so subtle, that to be

Nothing, was all his glory.


23.

One single point in his belief

From his organization sprung, _570

The heart-enrooted faith, the chief

Ear in his doctrines' blighted sheaf,

That 'Happiness is wrong';


24.

So thought Calvin and Dominic;

So think their fierce successors, who _575

Even now would neither stint nor stick

Our flesh from off our bones to pick,

If they might 'do their do.'


25.

His morals thus were undermined:--

The old Peter--the hard, old Potter-- _580

Was born anew within his mind;

He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,

As when he tramped beside the Otter. (1)


26.

In the death hues of agony

Lambently flashing from a fish, _585

Now Peter felt amused to see

Shades like a rainbow's rise and flee,

Mixed with a certain hungry wish(2).


[27.]

So in his Country's dying face

He looked--and, lovely as she lay, _590

Seeking in vain his last embrace,

Wailing her own abandoned case,

With hardened sneer he turned away:


28.

And coolly to his own soul said;--

'Do you not think that we might make _595

A poem on her when she's dead:--

Or, no--a thought is in my head--

Her shroud for a new sheet I'll take:


29.

'My wife wants one.--Let who will bury

This mangled corpse! And I and you, _600

My dearest Soul, will then make merry,

As the Prince Regent did with Sherry,--'

'Ay--and at last desert me too.'


30.

And so his Soul would not be gay,

But moaned within him; like a fawn _605

Moaning within a cave, it lay

Wounded and wasting, day by day,

Till all its life of life was gone.


31.

As troubled skies stain waters clear,

The storm in Peter's heart and mind _610

Now made his verses dark and queer:

They were the ghosts of what they were,

Shaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.


32.

For he now raved enormous folly,

Of Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves, _615

'Twould make George Colman melancholy

To have heard him, like a male Molly,

Chanting those stupid staves.


33.

Yet the Reviews, who heaped abuse

On Peter while he wrote for freedom, _620

So soon as in his song they spy

The folly which soothes tyranny,

Praise him, for those who feed 'em.


34.

'He was a man, too great to scan;--

A planet lost in truth's keen rays:-- _625

His virtue, awful and prodigious;--

He was the most sublime, religious,

Pure-minded Poet of these days.'


35.

As soon as he read that, cried Peter,

'Eureka! I have found the way _630

To make a better thing of metre

Than e'er was made by living creature

Up to this blessed day.'


36.

Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil;--

In one of which he meekly said: _635

'May Carnage and Slaughter,

Thy niece and thy daughter,

May Rapine and Famine,

Thy gorge ever cramming,

Glut thee with living and dead! _640


37.

'May Death and Damnation,

And Consternation,

Flit up from Hell with pure intent!

Slash them at Manchester,

Glasgow, Leeds, and Chester; _645

Drench all with blood from Avon to Trent.


38.

'Let thy body-guard yeomen

Hew down babes and women,

And laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!

When Moloch in Jewry _650

Munched children with fury,

It was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent. (1)