Page:Peter Bell (Wordsworth).djvu/78

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62
PETER BELL.
Part III.

Let them whose voice can stop the clouds—
Whose cunning eye can see the wind—
Tell to a curious world the cause
Why, making here a sudden pause,
The Ass turn'd round his head—and grinn'd.

Appalling process!—I have mark'd
The like on heath—in lonely wood,
And, verily, have seldom met
A spectacle more hideous—yet
It suited Peter's present mood.

And, grinning in his turn, his teeth
He in jocose defiance show'd—
When, to confound his spiteful mirth,
A murmur, pent within the earth,
In the dead earth beneath the road,