It is the argument of The Prelude, in which Wordsworth describes more fully than in his dramatic poems, and with a deeper and more acute perception of truth, all that he knew and felt of the influences exerted over each other by nature and his own mind. Perhaps, however, the psychology peculiar to the poet may be better illustrated by the analysis of a shorter and more humble work; one which, from its strangeness, has frequently been turned into ridicule, which intentionally runs counter to poetic tradition, and makes use of details, previously regarded as merely ludicrous, with serious intent. This is the story of Peter Bell, the pedlar.1 More precisely, it is an account of the conversion of a brutal and profligate churl, who is brought to a state of grace by the impressions made upon his senses, one fine evening, by a donkey and a landscape.

III

Peter Bell was a hawker. For more than thirty-two years he had driven his donkeys with their load of pottery in every direction throughout England and Scotland. His journeys took him from the cliffs of Dover to the rocky shore of Cornwall, from the Scotch Highlands to the Lincolnshire fens. His life was spent in the free air, amid the solitude and the changing beauty of nature, in daily contact with wood or open field, mountain or sea. But never yet had he felt the charm or the grandeur of the scenes he witnessed in the course of his wandering life.

He roved among the vales and streams,
In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day,—
But nature ne'er could find the way
Into the heart of Peter Bell.

In vain, through every changeful year,

Did Nature lead him as before;

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

1 Peter Bell was written in 1798. The following quotations are from the

earliest text, published in 1819.

Small change it made in Peter's heart
To see his gentle panniered train
With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
Where'er the tender grass was leading
Its earliest green along the lane.

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!

A churlish, half-savage kind of fellow was Peter, and a profligate to boot, contracting easy matrimonial ties wherever he went, careless of the laws, for he had as many as a dozen wedded wives. His vices were no doubt the product of the towns in which he stayed here and there. But nature had as yet failed to soften his rugged soul; she appeared, on the contrary, to have rendered it still more savage in character, so that her wildest features were reflected in his countenance and imprinted even on his heart. The wilderness had fostered within him

the unshaped, half-human thoughts

Which solitary Nature feeds
'Mid summer storms or winter's ice.

His face was keen as is the wind

That cuts along the hawthorn-fence;

his forehead all wrinkled "by knitting of his brows beneath the glaring sun."

There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye,
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!

But though nature had failed to instil her lessons of loving-kindness and morality into him by slow degrees, she finally succeeded by means of a sudden shock in which she combined all the potent spells at her command in order to subdue his rebellious spirit.

On a beautiful evening in November, when the full moon shone brightly upon the river Swale, Peter was travelling alone on the bank of the rapid stream.

He trudged along through copse and brake
He trudged along o'er hill and dale;
Nor for the moon cared he a tittle,
And for the stars he cared as little,
And for the murmuring river Swale.

But, chancing to espy a path
That promised to cut short the way;
As many a wiser man hath done,
He left a trusty guide for one
That might his steps betray.

To a thick wood he soon is brought
Where cheerily his course he weaves,
And whistling loud may yet be heard,
Though often buried like a bird

Darkling, among the boughs and leaves.

But the footpath gives no sign of coming back to the road, and Peter begins to rave against his ill-luck. When the path ends abruptly in a deserted quarry, he becomes more angry still. Pressing onwards, however, among the huge, shapeless blocks of stone, with their shadows, "massy and black," he passes right through the quarry, and behold! there lies before him a lawn of a soft and lovely hue, an exquisite green plot of earth, encompassed with rocks, beneath which flows the Swale, noiseless and unseen. He has crossed the plot of meadow, when, turning his head, he sees a solitary ass. His first impulse is to take possession of the creature to compensate himself for having come so far out of his way. But first of all he casts his eyes around him; not a house is to be seen, not a woodman's hut, nor cottage light. He seizes the

halter, leaps upon the animal's back, and belabours its sides with his heels. The ass remains motionless. Then Peter gives " a jerk that from a dungeon-floor would have pulled up an iron ring"; and still the ass makes no

movement.

Quoth Peter, leaping from his seat,
"There is some plot against me laid;
Once more the little meadow-ground
And all the hoary cliffs around
He cautiously surveyed.

All, all is silent-rocks and woods,
All still and silent-far and near !
Only the Ass, with motion dull,
Upon the pivot of his skull
Turns round his long left ear.

Thought Peter, What can mean all this?

Some ugly witchcraft must be here!
-Once more the Ass, with motion dull,
Upon the pivot of his skull

Turned round his long left ear.

Peter Bell begins to grow fearful, and then his dread turns to fury. With the skill of long practice he deals the poor creature a terrible blow with his staff; the ass staggers, and without a groan drops upon its knees, then sinks down on its side by the brink of the river, and turns towards Peter its "shining hazel eye."

'Twas but one mild, reproachful look,
A look more tender than severe;
And straight in sorrow, not in dread,
He turned the eye-ball in his head

Towards the smooth river deep and clear.

Still the sapling rings upon its fleshless sides; three times the animal groans piteously; yet neither its moans nor its gaunt and skeleton-like appearance touch Peter Bell's cruel heart. Maddened by this passive resistance, Peter swears he will fling the ass into the river.

An impious oath confirmed the threat—
But, while upon the ground he lay
To all the echoes, south and north,
And east and west, the Ass sent forth
A loud and piteous bray!

This outcry, on the heart of Peter,
Seems like a note of joy to strike,—
Joy at the heart of Peter knocks ;
But in the echo of the rocks
Was something Peter did not like.

Whether to cheer his coward breast,
Or that he could not break the chain,
In this serene and solemn hour,
Twined round him by demoniac
To the blind work he turned again.

power,

Among the rocks and winding crags;
Among the mountains far away;
Once more the Ass did lengthen out
More ruefully an endless shout,

The hard dry see-saw of his horrible bray!

What is there now in Peter's heart!

Or whence the might of this strange sound?
The moon uneasy looked and dimmer,
The broad blue heavens appeared to glimmer,
And the rocks staggered all around—

From Peter's hand the sapling dropped!
Threat has he none to execute;
"If any one should come and see
That I am here, they'll think," quoth he,
"I'm helping this poor dying brute."

He scans the Ass from limb to limb,
And Peter now uplifts his eyes;
Steady the moon doth look and clear,
And like themselves the rocks appear,
And tranquil are the skies.

Recovering his confidence Peter Bell is about to strike again, when he catches sight of something in the river so