“Within the breast of Peter Bell
  These silent raptures found no place; [24]
  He was a Carl as wild and rude
  As ever hue-and-cry pursued,
  As ever ran a felon’s race. 275

  “Of all that lead a lawless life,
  Of all that love their lawless lives,
  In city or in village small,
  He was the wildest far of all;—­
  He had a dozen wedded wives. 280

  “Nay, start not!—­wedded wives—­and twelve! 
  But how one wife could e’er come near him,
  In simple truth I cannot tell;
  For, be it said of Peter Bell,
  To see him was to fear him. 285

  “Though Nature could not touch his heart
  By lovely forms, and silent [25] weather,
  And tender sounds, yet you might see
  At once, that Peter Bell and she
  Had often been together. 290

  “A savage wildness round him hung
  As of a dweller out of doors;
  In his whole figure and his mien
  A savage character was seen
  Of mountains and of dreary moors. 295

  “To all the unshaped half-human thoughts
  Which solitary Nature feeds
  ’Mid summer storms or winter’s ice,
  Had Peter joined whatever vice
  The cruel city breeds. 300

  “His face was keen as is the wind
  That cuts along the hawthorn-fence;
  Of courage you saw little there,
  But, in its stead, a medley air
  Of cunning and of impudence. 305

  “He had a dark and sidelong walk,
  And long and slouching was his gait;
  Beneath his looks so bare and bold,
  You might perceive, his spirit cold
  Was playing with some inward bait. 310

  “His forehead wrinkled was and furred;
  A work, one half of which was done
  By thinking of his ‘whens,’ and ‘hows’;
  And half, by knitting of his brows
  Beneath the glaring sun. 315

“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!” 320

* * * * *

One night, (and now my little Bess! 
We’ve reached at last the promised Tale;)
One beautiful November night,
When the full moon was shining bright
Upon the rapid river Swale, 325

Along the river’s winding banks
Peter was travelling all alone;
Whether to buy or sell, or led
By pleasure running in his head,
To me was never known. 330

  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. 335