This page has been validated.
48
PETER BELL.
Part II.
I see a blooming Wood-boy there,
And, if I had the power to say
How sorrowful the wanderer is,
Your heart would be as sad as his
Till you had kiss'd his tears away!
Holding a hawthorn branch in hand,
All bright with berries ripe and red;
Into the cavern's mouth he peeps—
Thence back into the moon-light creeps;
What seeks the boy?—the silent dead!
His father!—Him doth he require,
Whom he hath sought with fruitless pains,
Among the rocks, behind the trees,
Now creeping on his hands and knees,
Now running o'er the open plains.
