Page:Peter Bell (Wordsworth).djvu/60

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44
PETER BELL.
Part II.

The Ass looks on—and to his work
Is Peter quietly resign'd;
He touches here—he touches there—
And now among the dead man's hair
His sapling Peter has entwin'd.

He pulls—and looks—and pulls again,
And he whom the poor Ass had lost,
The man who had been four days dead,
Head foremost from the river's bed
Uprises—like a ghost!

And Peter draws him to dry land;
And through the brain of Peter pass
Some poignant twitches, fast and faster,
"No doubt," quoth he, "he is the master
"Of this poor miserable Ass!"