Peter Grimes; the Outcast
Extract from Letter XXII, The Poor of the
Borough, The Borough
by George
Crabbe
|
| Thus by himself compelled to live
each day, |
| To wait for certain hours the
tide's delay; |
| At the same times the same dull
views to see, |
| The bounding marsh-bank and the
blighted tree; |
| The water only, when the tides
were high, |
| When low, the mud half-covered
and half-dry; |
| The sun-burnt tar that blisters
on the planks, |
| And bank-side stakes in their
uneven ranks; |
| Heaps of entangled weeds that
slowly float, |
As the tide rolls by the impeded
boat.
|
| When tides were
neap, and, in the sultry day, |
| Through the tall bounding
mud-banks made their way, |
| Which on each side rose swelling,
and below |
| The dark warm flood ran silently
and slow; |
| There anchoring, Peter chose from
man to hide, |
| There hang his head, and view the
lazy tide |
| In its hot slimy channel slowly
glide; |
| Where the small eels that left
the deeper way |
| For the warm shore, within the
shallows play; |
| Where gaping mussels, left upon
the mud, |
| Slope their slow passage to the
fallen flood; - |
| Here dull and hopeless he'd lie
down and trace |
| How sidelong crabs had scrawled
their crooked race; |
| Or sadly listen to the tuneless
cry |
| Of fishing gull or clanging
golden-eye; |
| What time the sea-birds to the
marsh would come, |
| And the loud bittern, from the
bull-rush home, |
| Gave from the salt-ditch side the
bellowing boom: |
| He nursed the feelings these dull
scenes produce, |
| And loved to stop beside the
opening sluice; |
| Where the small stream, confined
in narrow bound, |
| Ran with a dull, unvaried,
saddening sound; |
| Where all, presented to the eye
or ear, |
Oppressed the soul with misery,
grief, and fear.
|
| George Crabbe | Classic
Poems
|
