And though stern Peter, with a cruel hand, And knotted rope, enforced the rude command, Yet he consider'd what he'd lately felt, And his vile blows with selfish pity dealt. One day such draughts the cruel fisher made, He could not vend them in his borough-trade, But sail'd for London-mart: the boy was ill, But ever humbled to his master's will; And on the river, where they smoothly sail'd, He strove with terror and awhile prevail'd; But new to danger on the angry sea, He clung affrighten'd to his master's knee: The boat grew leaky and the wind was strong, Rough was the passage and the time was long; His liquor fail'd, and Peter's wrath arose, - No more is known--the rest we must suppose, Or learn of Peter: --Peter says, he "spied The stripling's danger and for harbour tried; Meantime the fish, and then th' apprentice died." The pitying women raised a clamour round, And weeping said, "Thou hast thy 'prentice drown'd." Now the stern man was summon'd to the hall, To tell his tale before the burghers all: He gave th' account; profess'd the lad he loved, And kept his brazen features all unmoved. The mayor himself with tone severe replied, - "Henceforth with thee shall never boy abide; Hire thee a freeman, whom thou durst not beat, But who, in thy despite, will sleep and eat: Free thou art now!--again shouldst thou appear, Thou'lt find thy sentence, like thy soul, severe." Alas! for Peter not a helping hand, So was he hated, could he now command; Alone he row'd his boat, alone he cast His nets beside, or made his anchor fast: To hold a rope or hear a curse was none, - He toil'd and rail'd; he groan'd and swore alone. Thus by himself compell'd to live each day, To wait for certain hours the tide's delay; At the same time 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 cover'd 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 scrawi'd 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,