where he kept
His various wealth, and there he oft-times slept;
But no success could please his cruel soul,
He wish’d for one to trouble and control;
He wanted some obedient boy to stand
And bear the blow of his outrageous hand;
And hoped to find in some propitious hour
A feeling creature subject to his power. 
Peter had heard there were in London then, —
Still have they being!—­workhouse-clearing men,
Who, undisturb’d by feelings just or kind,
Would parish-boys to needy tradesmen bind: 
They in their want a trifling sum would take,
And toiling slaves of piteous orphans make. 
   Such Peter sought, and when a lad was found,
The sum was dealt him, and the slave was bound. 
Some few in town observed in Peter’s trap
A boy, with jacket blue and woollen cap;
But none inquired how Peter used the rope,
Or what the bruise that made the stripling stoop;
None could the ridges on his back behold,
None sought him shiv’ring in the winter’s cold;
None put the question,—­“Peter, dost thou give
The boy his food?—­What, man! the lad must live: 
Consider, Peter, let the child have bread,
He’ll serve the better if he’s stroked and fed.” 
None reason’d thus—­and some, on hearing cries,
Said calmly, “Grimes is at his exercise.” 
   Pinn’d, beaten, cold, pinch’d, threaten’d, and abused —
His efforts punish’d and his food refused, —
Awake tormented,—­soon aroused from sleep, —
Struck if he wept, and yet compell’d to weep,
The trembling boy dropp’d down and strove to pray,
Received a blow, and trembling turn’d away,
Or sobb’d and hid his piteous face;—­while he,
The savage master, grinn’d in horrid glee: 
He’d now the power he ever loved to show,
A feeling being subject to his blow. 
   Thus lived the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,
His tears despised, his supplications vain: 
Compe’lld by fear to lie, by need to steal,
His bed uneasy and unbless’d his meal,
For three sad years the boy his tortures bore,
And then his pains and trials were no more. 
   “How died he, Peter?” when the people said,
He growl’d—­“I found him lifeless in his bed;”
Then tried for softer tone, and sigh’d, “Poor Sam is dead.” 
Yet murmurs were there, and some questions ask’d —
How he was fed, how punish’d, and how task’d? 
Much they suspected, but they little proved,
And Peter pass’d untroubled and unmoved. 
   Another boy with equal ease was found,
The money granted, and the victim bound;
And what his fate?—­One night it chanced he fell
From the boat’s mast and perish’d in her well,
Where fish were living kept, and where the boy
(So reason’d men) could not himself destroy:  —
   “Yes! so it was” said Peter, “in his play,
(For he was idle both by night and day,)
He climb’d the main-mast and then fell below;” —
Then show’d his corpse, and pointed to the blow.