PART SECOND

  We left our Hero in a trance,
  Beneath the alders, near the river;
  The Ass is by the river-side,
  And, where the feeble breezes glide,
  Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver. 535

  A happy respite! but at length
  He feels the glimmering of the moon;
  Wakes with glazed eye, and feebly sighing—­
  To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
  Into a second swoon! [59] 540

  He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
  He touches—­’tis to him a treasure! 
  Faint recollection seems to tell
  That he is yet where mortals dwell—­
  A thought received with languid pleasure! 545

  His head upon his elbow propped,
  Becoming less and less perplexed,
  Sky-ward he looks—­to rock and wood—­
  And then—­upon the glassy [60] flood
  His wandering eye is fixed. 550

  Thought he, that is the face of one
  In his last sleep securely bound! 
  So toward the stream his head he bent,
  And downward thrust his staff, intent
  The river’s depth to sound. [61] 555

Now—­like a tempest-shattered bark, That overwhelmed and prostrate lies, And in a moment to the verge Is lifted of a foaming surge—­ Full suddenly the Ass doth rise! 560

  His staring bones all shake with joy,
  And close by Peter’s side he stands: 
  While Peter o’er the river bends,
  The little Ass his neck extends,
  And fondly licks his hands. 565

  Such life is in the Ass’s eyes,
  Such life is in his limbs and ears;
  That Peter Bell, if he had been
  The veriest coward ever seen,
  Must now have thrown aside his fears. 570

  The Ass looks on—­and to his work
  Is Peter quietly resigned;
  He touches here—­he touches there—­
  And now among the dead man’s hair
  His sapling Peter has entwined. 575

  He pulls—­and looks—­and pulls again;
  And he whom the poor Ass had lost,
  The man who had been four days dead,
  Head-foremost from the river’s bed
  Uprises like a ghost! [G] 580

  And Peter draws him to dry land;
  And through the brain of Peter pass
  Some poignant twitches, fast and faster;
  “No doubt,” quoth he, “he is the Master
  Of this poor miserable Ass!” 585

  The meagre shadow that looks on—­
  What would he now? [62] what is he doing? 
  His sudden fit of joy is flown,—­
  He on his knees hath laid him down,
  As if he were his grief renewing; 590

  But no—­that Peter on his back
  Must mount, he shows well as he can:  [63]
  Thought Peter then, come weal or woe
  I’ll do what he would have me do,
  In pity to this poor drowned man. 595