He trembles - he is pale as death

His voice is weak with perturbation

Poor Peter from a thousand causes
Is crippled sore in his narration.

At length she learned how he espied
The Ass in that small meadow ground;
And that her husband now lay dead,
Beside that luckless river's bed
In which he had been drowned.

A piercing look the Sufferer cast
Upon the Beast that near her stands ;
She sees 'tis he, that 'tis the same;
She calls the poor Ass by his name,
And wrings, and wrings her hands.

"O wretched loss untimely stroke! "If he had died upon his bed!

66

He knew not one forewarning pain ·

"He never will come home again

"Is dead. for ever dead!"

--

Beside the Woman Peter stands ;
His heart is opening more and more;
A holy sense pervades his mind;

He feels what he for human kind
Had never felt before.

At length, by Peter's arm sustained,
The Woman rises from the ground

"Oh, mercy! something must be done, —

66

My little Rachael, you must run,

"Some willing neighbour must be found.

"The first you meet with bid him come,

"Ask him to lend his horse to-night

"And this good man, whom Heaven requite, "Will help to bring the body home."

Away goes Rachael weeping loud;-
An Infant, waked by her distress,
Makes in the house a piteous cry, -
And Peter hears the Mother sigh,
"Seven are they, and all fatherless !"-

And now is Peter taught to feel

That man's heart is a holy thing;

And Nature, through a world of death,
Breathes into him a second breath,

More searching than the breath of spring.

Upon a stone the Woman sits

In agony of silent grief

From his own thoughts did Peter start;
He longs to press her to his heart,
From love that cannot find relief.

But roused, as if through every limb
Had past a sudden shock of dread,
The Mother o'er the threshold flies,
And up the cottage stair she hies,

And to the pillow gives her burning head

And Peter turns his steps aside

Into a shade of darksome trees,

Where he sits down, he knows not how, With his hands pressed against his brow, And resting on his tremulous knees.

There, self-involved, does Peter sit
Until no sign of life he makes,

As if his mind were sinking deep

Through years that have been long asleep!
The trance is past away he wakes,

He turns his head and sees the Ass

Yet standing in the clear moonshine,
"When shall I be as good as thou?
"Oh! would, poor beast, that I had now
"A heart but half as good as thine!"

-But He—who deviously hath sought
His father through the lonesome woods,
Hath sought, proclaiming to the ear
Of night his inward grief and fear-

Towards the gentle Ass he springs,
And up about his neck he climbs ;
In loving words he talks to him,
He kisses, kisses face and limb, —
He kisses him a thousand times!

This Peter sees, while in the shade
He stood beside the cottage door
And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild,

:

Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child, "Oh! God, I can endure no more!"

Here ends my Tale: for in a trice Arrived a neighbour with his horse; Peter went forth with him straightway; And, with due care, ere break of day Together they brought back the Corse.

And many years did this poor Ass,
Whom once it was my luck to see
Cropping the shrubs of Leming-Lane,
Help by his labour to maintain
The Widow and her family.