It is written in that pure unlaboured style which can only be met with among labourers; and I can safely say that its occasional meaning occasionally falls far below the meanest capacity. I commit my ballad confidently to posterity. I love to read my own poetry: it does my heart good.” W. W. The parody consists of 42 stanzas, and relates how Peter Bell, visiting the churchyard, comes across a gravestone on which is engraved W. W. I. It is the thirty-first of march, A gusty evening――half past seven; The moon is shining o’er the larch, A simple shape――a cock’d up arch, Rising bigger than a star, Though the stars are thick in Heaven. IV. Beneath the ever blessed moon An old man o’er an old grave stares, You never look’d upon his fellow; His brow is covered with grey hairs, As though they were an umbrella. VI. ’Tis Peter Bell――’tis Peter Bell, Who never stirreth in the day; His hand is wither’d――he is old! On Sundays’ he is us’d to pray, In winter he is very cold. VII. I’ve seen him in the month of August, At the wheat-field, hour by hour, Picking ear――by ear,――by ear,―― Through wind,――and rain,――and sun,――and shower, From year,――to year,――to year,――to year. XXXVII. Patient Peter pores and proses On, from simple grave to grave; Here marks the children snatch’d to heaven, Nor left to blunder “we are seven;”―― Even Andrew Jones no power could save. XXXVIII. What a Sexton’s work is here, Lord! the Idiot Boy is gone; And Barbara Lewthaites’ fate the same, And cold as mutton is her lamb, And Alice Fell is bone by bone. XXXIX. And tears are thick with Peter Bell, Yet still he sees one blessed tomb; Tow’rd it he creeps with spectacles, And bending on his leather knees, He reads the _Lake_ist’s Poet’s doom. XL. The letters printed are by fate, The death they say was suicide; He reads――‘Here lieth W. W. Who never more will trouble you, trouble you;’ The old man smokes who ’tis that died. XLI. Go home, go home――Old Man, go home; Peter lay thee down at night, Thou art happy, Peter Bell, Say thy prayer for Alice Fell, Thou hast seen a blessed sight. XLII. He quits that moon-light yard of skulls, And still he feels right glad, and smiles With moral joy at that old tomb; Peters’ cheek recalls its bloom, And as he creepeth by the tiles, He mutters ever――“W. W. Never more will trouble you, trouble you.” There has been some speculation as to the author of this parody, and as far back as 1866 the following letter appeared in _Notes and Queries_: