At the same time the same dull views to see,
The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half cover’d and half-dry;
The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat. 
   When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,
Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way,
Which on each side rose swelling, and below
The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;
Where the small eels that left the deeper way
For the warm shore, within the shallows play;
Where gaping mussels, left upon the mud,
Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood; —
Here dull and hopeless he’d lie down and trace
How sidelong crabs had scrawi’d their crooked race,
Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry
Of fishing gull or clanging golden-eye;
What time the sea-birds to the marsh would come. 
And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home,
Gave from the salt ditch side the bellowing boom: 
He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce,
And loved to stop beside the opening sluice;
Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound,
Ran with a dull, unvaried, sadd’ning sound;
Where all, presented to the eye or ear,
Oppresss’d the soul with misery, grief, and fear. 
   Besides these objects, there were places three,
Which Peter seem’d with certain dread to see;
When he drew near them he would turn from each,
And loudly whistle till he pass’d the reach. 
   A change of scene to him brought no relief,
In town, ’twas plain, men took him for a thief: 
The sailor’s wives would stop him in the street,
And say, “Now, Peter, thou’st no boy to beat;”
Infants at play when they perceived him, ran,
Warning each other—­“That’s the wicked man;”
He growl’d an oath, and in an angry tone
Cursed the whole place and wish’d to be alone. 
   Alone he was, the same dull scenes in view,
And still more gloomy in his sight they grew: 
Though man he hated, yet employ’d alone
At bootless labour, he would swear and groan,
Cursing the shoals that glided by the spot,
And gulls that caught them when his arts could not. 
   Cold nervous tremblings shook his sturdy frame,
And strange disease—­he couldn’t say the name;
Wild were his dreams, and oft he rose in fright,
Waked by his view of horrors in the night, —
Horrors that would the sternest minds amaze,
Horrors that demons might be proud to raise: 
And though he felt forsaken, grieved at heart,
To think he lived from all mankind apart;
Yet, if a man approach’d, in terrors he would start. 
   A winter pass’d since Peter saw the town,