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LXXV.

"Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

LXXVI.

"Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

LXXVII.

"Let the fixed bayonet

Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

LXXVIII.

"Let the horsemen's scymitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

LXXIX.

"Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks which are Weapons of unvanquished war;

LXXX.

"And let Panic, who outspeeds The career of armèd steeds, Pass, a disregarded shade,

Through your phalanx undismayed.

LXXXI.

"Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

LXXXII.

"The old laws of England-they Whose reverend heads with age are grey, Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo-Liberty!

LXXXIII.

"On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue . . . .
And it will not rest on you.

LXXXIV.

"And if then the tyrants dare, Let them ride among you there,

Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,What they like, that let them do.

LXXXV.

"With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

LXXXVI.

"Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

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LXXXVII.

Every woman in the land

Will point at them as they stand—
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

LXXXVIII.

"And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free
Ashamed of such base company.

LXXXIX.

"And that slaughter to the Nation Shall steam up like inspiration, Eloquent, oracular;

A volcano heard afar.

XC.

"And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again-again-again

XCI.

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-

Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many-they are few."

PETER BELL THE THIRD.'

BY

MICHING MALLECHO, ESQ.

1819.

Is it a party in a parlour,

Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punch-some sipping tea;

But, as you by their faces see,

All silent, and all- -damned!

Peter Bell, by W. WORDSWORTH.

OPHELIA.-What means this, my lord? HAMLET.-Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.-SHAKESPEARE.

DEDICATION.

TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE
YOUNGER, H.F.

DEAR TOM,

Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges; although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more

Wordsworth's Peter Bell having been announced, John Hamilton Reynolds forestalled its appearance by issuing Peter Bell, a Lyrical Ballad, a very witty satire upon Wordsworth. Keats reviewed his friend's pamphlet in The Examiner. Shelley's amusement at the episode ran so high that he wrote a third Peter Bell, also satirizing Wordsworth, but not very successfully. Moore's books, The Twopenny Postbag and The Fudge Family, issued under the pen-name of "Thomas Brown the Younger," were once popular, though probably not much read now. It has been suggested that the initials "H.F." affixed by Shelley to the name of the dedicatee mean "Historian of the Fudges."-ED.

active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness.

You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well-it was he who presented me to two of the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung from this introduction to his brothers. And in presenting him to you, I have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is considerably the dullest of the three.

There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of the Peter Bells, that if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter Bells; they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at length illustrated to the satisfaction of all parties in the theological world, by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell.

Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes colours like a camelion, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus of a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound; then dull; then prosy and dull; and now dull--O, so very dull! it is an ultra-legitimate dulness.

You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in "this world which is "-so Peter informed us before his conversion to White Obi

-The world of all of us, and where
We find our happiness, or not at all.

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