“He two-and-thirty years or more,
  Had been a wild and woodland rover;
  Had heard the Atlantic surges roar
  On farthest Cornwall’s rocky shore,
  And trod the cliffs of Dover. 210

  “And he had seen Caernarvon’s towers,
  And well he knew the spire of Sarum;
  And he had been where Lincoln bell
  Flings o’er the fen that ponderous knell—­
  A far-renowned alarum. [23] 215

  “At Doncaster, at York, and Leeds,
  And merry Carlisle had he been;
  And all along the Lowlands fair,
  All through the bonny shire of Ayr;
  And far as Aberdeen. 220

  “And he had been at Inverness;
  And Peter, by the mountain-rills,
  Had danced his round with Highland lasses;
  And he had lain beside his asses
  On lofty Cheviot Hills:  225

  “And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
  Among the rocks and winding scars;
  Where deep and low the hamlets lie
  Beneath their little patch of sky
  And little lot of stars:  230

  “And all along the indented coast,
  Bespattered with the salt-sea foam;
  Where’er a knot of houses lay
  On headland, or in hollow bay;—­
  Sure never man like him did roam! 235

  “As well might Peter, in the Fleet,
  Have been fast bound, a begging debtor;—­
  He travelled here, he travelled there;—­
  But not the value of a hair
  Was heart or head the better. 240

  “He roved among the vales and streams,
  In the green wood and hollow dell;
  They were his dwellings night and day,—­
  But nature ne’er could find the way
  Into the heart of Peter Bell. 245

  “In vain, through every changeful year,
  Did Nature lead him as before;
  A primrose by a river’s brim
  A yellow primrose was to him,
  And it was nothing more. 250

  “Small change it made in Peter’s heart
  To see his gentle panniered train
  With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
  Where’er the tender grass was leading
  Its earliest green along the lane. 255

  “In vain, through water, earth, and air,
  The soul of happy sound was spread,
  When Peter on some April morn,
  Beneath the broom or budding thorn,
  Made the warm earth his lazy bed. 260

  “At noon, when, by the forest’s edge
  He lay beneath the branches high,
  The soft blue sky did never melt
  Into his heart; he never felt
  The witchery of the soft blue sky! 265

  “On a fair prospect some have looked
  And felt, as I have heard them say,
  As if the moving time had been
  A thing as steadfast as the scene
  On which they gazed themselves away. 270