17.
Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,
Made him beyond the bottom see
Of truth’s clear well—when I and you, Ma’am, _540
Go, as we shall do, subter humum,
We may know more than he.
18.
Now Peter ran to seed in soul
Into a walking paradox;
For he was neither part nor whole, _545
Nor good, nor bad—nor knave nor fool;
—Among the woods and rocks
19.
Furious he rode, where late he ran,
Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;
Turned to a formal puritan, _550
A solemn and unsexual man,—
He half believed “White Obi”.
20.
This steed in vision he would ride,
High trotting over nine-inch bridges,
With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride, _555
Mocking and mowing by his side—
A mad-brained goblin for a guide—
Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.
21.
After these ghastly rides, he came
Home to his heart, and found from thence _560
Much stolen of its accustomed flame;
His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame
Of their intelligence.
22.
To Peter’s view, all seemed one hue;
He was no Whig, he was no Tory; _565
No Deist and no Christian he;—
He got so subtle, that to be
Nothing, was all his glory.
23.
One single point in his belief
From his organization sprung, _570
The heart-enrooted faith, the chief
Ear in his doctrines’ blighted sheaf,
That ‘Happiness is wrong’;
24.
So thought Calvin and Dominic;
So think their fierce successors, who _575
Even now would neither stint nor stick
Our flesh from off our bones to pick,
If they might ‘do their do.’
25.
His morals thus were undermined:—
The old Peter—the hard, old Potter— _580
Was born anew within his mind;
He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,
As when he tramped beside the Otter. (1)
26.
In the death hues of agony
Lambently flashing from a fish, _585
Now Peter felt amused to see
Shades like a rainbow’s rise and flee,
Mixed with a certain hungry wish(2).