Peter Grimes; the Outcast
Extract from Letter XXII, The Poor of the
Borough, The Borough
by George
Crabbe
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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.
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George Crabbe | Classic
Poems
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