This page has been validated.
20
PETER BELL.
Part I.
In vain, through water, earth, and air,
The soul of happy sound was spread,
When Peter, on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thorn,
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.
At noon, when by the forest's edge
He lay beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart,—he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
On a fair prospect some have look'd
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as stedfast as the scene
On which they gaz'd themselves away.
