FullReads

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)

PART 7.

DOUBLE DAMNATION.

1.
The Devil now knew his proper cue.–
Soon as he read the ode, he drove
To his friend Lord MacMurderchouse’s, 655
A man of interest in both houses,
And said:–‘For money or for love,

2.
‘Pray find some cure or sinecure;
To feed from the superfluous taxes
A friend of ours–a poet–fewer 660
Have fluttered tamer to the lure
Than he.’ His lordship stands and racks his

3.
Stupid brains, while one might count
As many beads as he had boroughs,–
At length replies; from his mean front, 665
Like one who rubs out an account,
Smoothing away the unmeaning furrows: