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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Borough. Letter XXII: Peter Grimes</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Old Peter Grimes made fishing his employ, <br> His wife he cabin'd with him and his boy,<br> And seem'd that life laborious to enjoy:<br> To town came quiet Peter with his fish,<br> And had of all a civil word and wish.<br> He left his trade upon the sabbath-day,<br> And took young Peter in his hand to pray:<br> But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,<br> At first refused, then added his abuse:<br> His father's love he scorn'd, his power defied,<br> But being drunk, wept sorely when he died.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Yes! then he wept, and to his mind there came<br> Much of his conduct, and he felt the shame,--<br> How he had oft the good old man reviled,<br> And never paid the duty of a child;<br> How, when the father in his Bible read,<br> He in contempt and anger left the shed:<br> "It is the word of life," the parent cried;<br> --"This is the life itself," the boy replied;<br> And while old Peter in amazement stood,<br> Gave the hot spirit to his boiling blood:--<br> How he, with oath and furious speech, began<br> To prove his freedom and assert the man;<br> And when the parent check'd his impious rage,<br> How he had cursed the tyranny of age,--<br> Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious blow<br> On his bare head, and laid his parent low;<br> The father groan'd--"If thou art old," said he,<br> "And hast a son--thou wilt remember me:<br> Thy mother left me in a happy time,<br> Thou kill'dst not her--Heav'n spares the double-crime."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief,<br> This he revolved, and drank for his relief.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Now lived the youth in freedom, but debarr'd<br> From constant pleasure, and he thought it hard;<br> Hard that he could not every wish obey,<br> But must awhile relinquish ale and play;<br> Hard! that he could not to his cards attend,<br> But must acquire the money he would spend.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> With greedy eye he look'd on all he saw,<br> He knew not justice, and he laugh'd at law;<br> On all he mark'd he stretch'd his ready hand;<br> He fish'd by water, and he filch'd by land:<br> Oft in the night has Peter dropp'd his oar,<br> Fled from his boat and sought for prey on shore;<br> Oft up the hedge-row glided, on his back<br> Bearing the orchard's produce in a sack,<br> Or farm-yard load, tugg'd fiercely from the stack;<br> And as these wrongs to greater numbers rose,<br> The more he look'd on all men as his foes.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> He built a mud-wall'd hovel, where he kept<br> His various wealth, and there he oft-times slept;<br> But no success could please his cruel soul,<br> He wish'd for one to trouble and control;<br> He wanted some obedient boy to stand<br> And bear the blow of his outrageous hand;<br> And hoped to find in some propitious hour<br> A feeling creature subject to his power.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Peter had heard there were in London then,--<br> Still have they being!--workhouse clearing men,<br> Who, undisturb'd by feelings just or kind,<br> Would parish-boys to needy tradesmen bind:<br> They in their want a trifling sum would take,<br> And toiling slaves of piteous orphans make.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Such Peter sought, and when a lad was found,<br> The sum was dealt him, and the slave was bound.<br> Some few in town observed in Peter's trap<br> A boy, with jacket blue and woollen cap;<br> But none inquired how Peter used the rope,<br> Or what the bruise, that made the stripling stoop;<br> None could the ridges on his back behold,<br> None sought his shiv'ring in the winter's cold;<br> None put the question,--"Peter, dost thou give<br> The boy his food?--What, man! the lad must live:<br> Consider, Peter, let the child have bread,<br> He'll serve thee better if he's stroked and fed."<br> None reason'd thus--and some, on hearing cries,<br> Said calmly, "Grimes is at his exercise."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd, and abused--<br> His efforts punish'd and his food refused,--<br> Awake tormented,--soon aroused from sleep,--<br> Struck if he wept, and yet compell'd to weep,<br> The trembling boy dropp'd down and strove to pray,<br> Received a blow, and trembling turn'd away,<br> Or sobb'd and hid his piteous face;--while he,<br> The savage master, grinn'd in horrid glee:<br> He'd now the power he ever loved to show,<br> A feeling being subject to his blow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Thus lived the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,<br> His tears despised, his supplications vain:<br> Compell'd by fear to lie, by need to steal,<br> His bed uneasy and unbless'd his meal,<br> For three sad years the boy his tortures bore,<br> And then his pains and trials were no more.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "How died he, Peter?" when the people said,<br> He growl'd--"I found him lifeless in his bed;"<br> Then tried for softer tone, and sigh'd, "Poor Sam is dead."<br> Yet murmurs were there, and some questions ask'd,--<br> How he was fed, how punish'd, and how task'd?<br> Much they suspected, but they little proved,<br> And Peter pass'd untroubled and unmoved.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Another boy with equal ease was found,<br> The money granted, and the victim bound;<br> And what his fate?--One night it chanced he fell<br> From the boat's mast and perish'd in her well.<br> Where fish were living kept, and where the boy<br> (So reason'd men) could not himself destroy:--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "Yes! so it was," said Peter, "in his play,<br> (For he was idle both by night and day,)<br> He climb'd the main-mast and then fell below;"--<br> Then show'd his corpse and pointed to the blow:<br> "What said the jury?"--they were long in doubt,<br> But sturdy Peter faced the matter out:<br> So they dismiss'd him, saying at the time,<br> "Keep fast your hatchway when you've boys who climb."<br> This hit the conscience, and he colour'd more<br> Than for the closest questions put before.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Thus all his fears the verdict set aside,<br> And at the slave-shop Peter still applied.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Then came a boy, of manners soft and mild,--<br> Our seamen's wives with grief beheld the child;<br> All thought (the poor themselves) that he was one<br> Of gentle blood, some noble sinner's son,<br> Who had, belike, deceived some humble maid,<br> Whom he had first seduced and then betray'd:<br> However this, he seem'd a gracious lad,<br> In grief submissive and with patience sad.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Passive he labour'd, till his slender frame<br> Bent with his loads, and he at length was lame:<br> Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long<br> The grossest insult and the foulest wrong;<br> But there were causes--in the town they gave<br> Fire, food, and comfort, to the gentle slave;<br> And though stern Peter, with a cruel hand,<br> And knotted rope, enforced the rude command,<br> Yet he considered what he'd lately felt,<br> And his vile blows with selfish pity dealt.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> One day such draughts the cruel fisher made,<br> He could not vend them in his borough-trade,<br> But sail'd for London-mart: the boy was ill,<br> But ever humbled to his master's will;<br> And on the river, where they smoothly sail'd,<br> He strove with terror and awhile prevail'd;<br> But new to danger on the angry sea,<br> He clung affrighten'd to his master's knee:<br> The boat grew leaky and the wind was strong,<br> Rough was the passage and the time was long;<br> His liquor fail'd, and Peter's wrath arose,--<br> No more is known--the rest we must suppose,<br> Or learn of Peter;--Peter says, he "spied<br> The stripling's danger and for harbour tried;<br> Meantime the fish, and then th' apprentice died."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> The pitying women raised a clamour round,<br> And weeping said, "Thou hast thy 'prentice drown'd."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Now the stern man was summon'd to the hall,<br> To tell his tale before the burghers all:<br> He gave th' account; profess'd the lad he loved,<br> And kept his brazen features all unmoved.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> The mayor himself with tone severe replied,<br> "Henceforth with thee shall never boy abide;<br> Hire thee a freeman, whom thou durst not beat,<br> But who, in thy despite, will sleep and eat:<br> Free thou art now!--again shouldst thou appear,<br> Thou'lt find thy sentence, like thy soul, severe."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Alas! for Peter not a helping hand,<br> So was he hated, could he now command;<br> Alone he row'd his boat, alone he cast<br> His nets beside, or made his anchor fast;<br> To hold a rope or hear a curse was none,--<br> He toil'd and rail'd; he groan'd and swore alone.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Thus by himself compell'd to live each day,<br> To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;<br> At the same times the same dull views to see,<br> The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;<br> The water only, when the tides were high,<br> When low, the mud half-cover'd and half-dry;<br> The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,<br> And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;<br> Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,<br> As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,<br> Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way,<br> Which on each side rose swelling, and below<br> The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;<br> There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,<br> There hang his head, and view the lazy tide<br> In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;<br> Where the small eels that left the deeper way<br> For the warm shore, within the shallows play;<br> Where gaping mussels, left upon the mud,<br> Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood;--<br> Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace<br> How sidelong crabs had scrawl'd their crooked race;<br> Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry<br> Of fishing gull or clanging golden-eye;<br> What time the sea-birds to the marsh would come,<br> And the loud bittern, from the bulrush home,<br> Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom:<br> He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce,<br> And loved to stop beside the opening sluice;<br> Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound,<br> Ran with a dull, unvaried, sadd'ning sound;<br> Where all, presented to the eye or ear,<br> Oppress'd the soul with misery, grief, and fear.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Besides these objects, there were places three,<br> Which Peter seem'd with certain dread to see;<br> When he drew near them he would turn from each,<br> And loudly whistle till he pass'd the reach.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> A change of scene to him brought no relief;<br> In town, 'twas plain, men took him for a thief:<br> The sailors' wives would stop him in the street,<br> And say, "Now, Peter, thou'st no boy to beat":<br> Infants at play, when they perceived him, ran,<br> Warning each other--"That's the wicked man":<br> He growl'd an oath, and in an angry tone<br> Cursed the whole place and wish'd to be alone.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Alone he was, the same dull scenes in view,<br> And still more gloomy in his sight they grew:<br> Though man he hated, yet employ'd alone<br> At bootless labour, he would swear and groan,<br> Cursing the shoals that glided by the spot,<br> And gulls that caught them when his arts could not.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Cold nervous tremblings shook his sturdy frame,<br> And strange disease--he couldn't say the name;<br> Wild were his dreams, and oft he rose in fright,<br> Waked by his view of horrors in the night,--<br> Horrors that would the sternest minds amaze,<br> Horrors that demons might be proud to raise:<br> And though he felt forsaken, grieved at heart,<br> To think he lived from all mankind apart;<br> Yet, if a man approach'd, in terrors he would start.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> A winter pass'd since Peter saw the town,<br> And summer-lodgers were again come down;<br> These, idly curious, with their glasses spied<br> The ships in bay as anchor'd for the tide,--<br> The river's craft,--the bustle of the quay,--<br> And sea-port views, which landmen love to see.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> One, up the river, had a man and boat<br> Seen day by day, now anchor'd, now afloat;<br> Fisher he seemed, yet used no net nor hook;<br> Of sea-fowl swimming by no heed he took,<br> But on the gliding waves still fix'd his lazy look:<br> At certain stations he would view the stream,<br> As if he stood bewilder'd in a dream,<br> Or that some power had chain'd him for a time,<br> To feel a curse or meditate on crime.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> This known, some curious, some in pity went,<br> And others question'd--"Wretch, dost thou repent?"<br> He heard, he trembled, and in fear resign'd<br> His boat: new terror fill'd his restless mind;<br> Furious he grew, and up the country ran,<br> And there they seized him--a distemper'd man:--<br> Him we received, and to a parish-bed,<br> Follow'd and curs'd, the groaning man was led.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Here when they saw him, whom they used to shun,<br> A lost, lone man, so harass'd and undone;<br> Our gentle females, ever prompt to feel,<br> Perceived compassion on their anger steal;<br> His crimes they could not from their memories blot,<br> But they were grieved, and trembled at his lot.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> A priest too came, to whom his words are told<br> And all the signs they shudder'd to behold.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "Look! look!" they cried; "his limbs with horror shake.<br> And as he grinds his teeth, what noise they make!<br> How glare his angry eyes, and yet he's not awake:<br> See! what cold drops upon his forehead stand,<br> And how he clenches that broad bony hand."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> The priest attending, found he spoke at times<br> As one alluding to his fears and crimes:<br> "It was the fall," he mutter'd, "I can show<br> The manner how--I never struck a blow":--<br> And then aloud--"Unhand me, free my chain;<br> An oath, he fell--it struck him to the brain:--<br> Why ask my father?--that old man will swear<br> Against my life; besides, he wasn't there:--<br> What, all agreed?--Am I to die to-day?--<br> My Lord, in mercy, give me time to pray."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> Then, as they watch'd him, calmer he became,<br> And grew so weak he couldn't move his frame,<br> But murmuring spake,--while they could see and hear<br> The start of terror and the groan of fear;<br> See the large dew-beads on his forehead rise,<br> And the cold death-drop glaze his sunken eyes;<br> Nor yet he died, but with unwonted force<br> Seem'd with some fancied being to discourse:<br> He knew not us, or with accustom'd art<br> He hid the knowledge, yet exposed his heart;<br> 'Twas part confession, and the rest defence,<br> A madman's tale, with gleams of waking sense.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "I'll tell you all," he said, "the very day<br> When the old man first placed them in my way:<br> My father's spirit--he who always tried<br> To give me trouble, when he lived and died--<br> When he was gone, he could not be content<br> To see my days in painful labour spent,<br> But would appoint his meetings, and he made<br> Me watch at these, and so neglect my trade.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene,<br> No living being had I lately seen;<br> I paddled up and down and dipp'd my net,<br> But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get,--<br> A father's pleasure, when his toil was done,<br> To plague and torture thus an only son!<br> And so I sat and look'd upon the stream,<br> How it ran on, and felt as in a dream:<br> But dream it was not: no!--I fix'd my eyes<br> On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise,<br> I saw my father on the water stand,<br> And hold a thin pale boy in either hand;<br> And there they glided ghastly on the top<br> Of the salt flood, and never touch'd a drop:<br> I would have struck them, but they knew th' intent,<br> And smiled upon the oar, and down they went.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "Now, from that day, whenever I began<br> To dip my net, there stood the hard old man--<br> He and those boys: I humbled me and pray'd<br> They would be gone;--they heeded not, but stay'd;<br> Nor could I turn, nor would the boat go by,<br> But gazing on the spirits, there was I:<br> They bade me leap to death, but I was loth to die:<br> And every day, as sure as day arose,<br> Would these three spirits meet me ere the close;<br> To hear and mark them daily was my doom,<br> And 'Come' they said, with weak, sad voices, 'come'.<br> To row away with all my strength I tried,<br> But there were they, hard by me in the tide,<br> The three unbodied forms--and 'Come', still 'come', they cried.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "Fathers should pity--but this old man shook<br> His hoary locks, and froze me by a look:<br> Thrice, when I struck them, through the water came<br> A hollow groan, that weaken'd all my frame:<br> 'Father!' said I, 'have mercy':--He replied,<br> I know not what--the angry spirit lied,--<br> 'Didst thou not draw thy knife?' said he:--'Twas true,<br> But I had pity and my arm withdrew:<br> He cried for mercy which I kindly gave,<br> But he has no compassion in his grave.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "There were three places, where they ever rose,--<br> The whole long river has not such as those,--<br> Places accursed, where, if a man remain,<br> He'll see the things which strike him to the brain;<br> And there they made me on my paddle lean,<br> And look at them for hours;--accursed scene!<br> When they would glide to that smooth eddy-space,<br> Then bid me leap and join them in the place;<br> And at my groans each little villain sprite<br> Enjoy'd my pains and vanish'd in delight.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "In one fierce summer-day, when my poor brain<br> Was burning hot, and cruel was my pain,<br> Then came this father-foe, and there he stood<br> With his two boys again upon the flood;<br> There was more mischief in their eyes, more glee<br> In their pale faces when they glared at me:<br> Still did they force me on the oar to rest,<br> And when they saw me fainting and oppress'd,<br> He, with his hand, the old man, scoop'd the flood,<br> And there came flame about him mix'd with blood;<br> He bade me stoop and look upon the place,<br> Then flung the hot-red liquor in my face;<br> Burning it blazed, and then I roar'd for pain,<br> I thought the demons would have turn'd my brain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395929" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> "Still there they stood, and forced me to behold<br> A place of horrors--they cannot be told--<br> Where the flood open'd, there I heard the shriek<br> Of tortured guilt--no earthly tongue can speak:<br> 'All days alike! for ever!' did they say,<br> 'And unremitted torments every day'--<br> Yes, so they said":--But here he ceased and gazed<br> On all around, affrighten'd and amazed;<br> And still he tried to speak, and look'd in dread<br> Of frighten'd females gathering round his bed;<br> Then dropp'd exhausted, and appear'd at rest,<br> Till the strong foe the vital powers possess'd:<br> Then with an inward, broken voice he cried,<br> "Again they come," and mutter'd as he died.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a></strong></div>

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