Well might my wishes be intense, my thoughts Strong and perturbed, not doubting at that time But that the virtue of one paramount mind

Not in my single self alone I found,
But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,
Change and subversion from that hour. No shock

Outrage and bloody power, and, in despite

Of what the People long had been and were
Through ignorance and false teaching, sadder proof
Of immaturity, and in the teeth

Of desperate opposition from without -
Have cleared a passage for just government,
And left a solid birthright to the State,
Redeemed, according to example given
By ancient lawgivers.

In this frame of mind, Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity, So seemed it, now I thankfully acknowledge, Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven, To England I returned, else (though assured That I both was and must be of small weight, No better than a landsman on the deck Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm) Doubtless, I should have then made common cause With some who perished; haply perished too, A poor mistaken and bewildered offering, Should to the breast of Nature have gone back, With all my resolutions, all my hopes,

A Poet only to myself, to men

Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul
To thee unknown!

Twice had the trees let fall

Their leaves, as often Winter had put on
His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge
Beat against Albion's shore, since ear of mine
Had caught the accents of my native speech
Upon our native country's sacred ground.
A patriot of the world, how could I glide
Into communion with her sylvan shades,
Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more
To abide in the great City, where I found
The general air still busy with the stir

Of that first memorable onset made

By a strong levy of humanity

Upon the traffickers in Negro blood;
Effort which, though defeated, had recalled
To notice old forgotten principles,

And through the nation spread a novel heat
Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own
That this particular strife had wanted power
To rivet my affections; nor did now
Its unsuccessful issue much excite
My sorrow; for I brought with me the faith

That, if France prospered, good men would not long
Pay fruitless worship to humanity,

And this most rotten branch of human shame,

Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains,

Would fall together with its parent tree.

What, then, were my emotions, when in arms

Britain put forth her free-born strength in league,
Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate Powers!

Down to that very moment; neither lapse
Nor turn of sentiment that might be named

A revolution, save at this one time;
All else was progress on the self-same path
On which, with a diversity of pace,
I had been travelling: this a stride at once
Into another region. As a light
And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze
On some grey rock-its birth-place-so had I
Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower
Of my beloved country, wishing not
A happier fortune than to wither there;
Now was I from that pleasant station torn
And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced,
Yea, afterwards-truth most painful to record!-
Exulted in the triumph of my soul,
When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,
Left without glory on the field, or driven,
Brave hearts! to shameful flight. It was a grief, -
Grief call it not, 'twas any thing but that, —
A conflict of sensations without name,
Of which he only, who may love the sight
Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge,
When in the congregation bending all
To their great Father, prayers were offered up,
Or praises for our country's victories;
And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance
I only, like an uninvited guest
Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add,
Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.

Oh! much have they to account for, who could tes By violence, at one decisive rent,

From the best youth in England their dear pride,
Their joy, in England; this, too, at a time
In which worst losses easily might wean
The best of names, when patriotic love
Did of itself in modesty give way,
Like the Precursor when the Deity
Is come Whose harbinger he was; a time
In which apostasy from ancient faith
Seemed but conversion to a higher creed;
Withal a season dangerous and wild,

A time when sage Experience would have snatched
Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose

A chaplet in contempt of his grey locks.

When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag In that unworthy service was prepared To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,

A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;

I saw them in their rest, a sojourner
Through a whole month of calm and glassy dayə
In that delightful island which protects
Their place of convocation-there I heard,

Of the glad times when first I traversed France A youthful pilgrim: above all reviewed

Tumult was therefore gladness, and the fear Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure,

But as the ancient Prophets, borne aloft
In vision, yet constrained by natural laws
With them to take a troubled human heart,
Wanted not consolations, nor a creed

Of reconcilement, then when they denounced,
On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss
Of their offences, punishment to come;
Or saw, like other men, with bodily eyes,
Before them, in some desolated place,

The wrath consummate and the threat fulfilled;
So, with devout humility be it said,
So, did a portion of that spirit fall
On me uplifted from the vantage-ground
Of pity and sorrow to a state of being

That through the time's exceeding fierceness saw
Glimpses of retribution, terrible,

And in the order of sublime behests:
But, even if that were not, amid the awe
Of unintelligible chastisement,
Not only acquiescences of faith
Survived, but daring sympathies with power,
Motions not treacherous or profane, else why
Within the folds of no ungentle breast
Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged?
Wild blasts of music thus could find their way
Into the midst of turbulent events;

So that worst tempests might be listened to.
Then was the truth received into my heart,
That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
Honour which could not else have been, a faith,
An elevation and a sanctity,

If new strength be not given nor old restored,
The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt
Was taken up by scoffers in their pride,
Saying, "Behold the harvest that we reap
From popular government and equality,"
I clearly saw that neither these nor aught
Of wild belief ingrafted on their names
By false philosophy had caused the woe,
But a terrific reservoir of guilt

And ignorance filled up from age to age,
That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,
But burst and spread in deluge through the land.

And as the desert hath green spots, the sea
Small islands scattered amid storiny waves,
So that disastrous period did not want
Bright sprinklings of all human excellence,
To which the silver wands of saints in Heaven
Might point with rapturous joy. Yet not the less,
For those examples in no age surpassed
Of fortitude and energy and love,
And human nature faithful to herself

Under worst trials, was I driven to think

With happy faces and with garlands hung,
And through a rainbow arch that spanned the street,
Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed,

I paced, a dear companion at my side,
The town of Arras, whence with promise high
Issued, on delegation to sustain
Humanity and right, that Robespierre,
He who thereafter, and in how short time!
Wielded the sceptre of the Atheist crew.
When the calamity spread far and wide-
And this same city, that did then appear
To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned
Under the vengeance of her cruel son,
As Lear reproached the winds-I could almost
Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle
For lingering yet an image in my mind
To mock me under such a strange reverse.

O Friend! few happier moments have been mine
Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves
A separate record. Over the smooth sands
Of Leven's ample estuary lay

My journey, and beneath a genial sun,
With distant prospect among gleams of sky
And clouds, and intermingling mountain tops,
In one inseparable glory clad,
Creatures of one ethereal substance met
In consistory, like a diadem

Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit
In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp
Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales
Among whose happy fields I had grown up
From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,
That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed
Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw
Sad opposites out of the inner heart,

As even their pensive influence drew from mine.
How could it otherwise? for not in vain
That very morning had I turned aside
To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves
An honoured teacher of my youth was laid,
And on the stone were graven by his desire
Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.
This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed,
Added no farewell to his parting counsel,
But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;"
And when I saw the turf that covered him,
After the lapse of full eight years, those words,
With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,
Came back upon me, so that some few tears
Fell from me in my own despite. But now
I thought, still traversing that wide-spread plain,
With tender pleasure of the verses graven
Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself:
He loved the Poets, and, if now alive,

d have loved me, as one not destitute promise, nor belying the kind hope Tat he had formed, when I, at his command, Ban to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.

As I advanced, all that I saw or felt
Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small
A rocky island near, a fragment stood
Hef like a sea rock) the low remains

With shells incrusted, dark with briny weeds)
O dilapidated structure, once

A Romish chapel, where the vested priest
Sad matins at the hour that suited those

Wao crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.
V4 far from that still ruin all the plain
Lay spotted with a variegated crowd

vehicles and travellers, horse and foot,
Wading beneath the conduct of their guide
Is jouse procession through the shallow stream
Ofnland waters; the great sea meanwhile
Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused,
Laging for skill to paint a scene so bright
And cheerful, but the foremost of the band
As he approached, no salutation given
In the familiar language of the day,

Cred, Robespierre is dead!"-nor was a doubt,
Afer strict question, left within my mind
Tat he and his supporters all were fallen.

Great was my transport, deep my gratitude To everlasting Justice, by this fiat Made manifest. "Come now, ye golden times," Said I, forth-pouring on those open sands A hymn of triumph: "as the morning comes From out the bosom of the night, come ye: Thus far our trust is verified; behold! They who with clumsy desperation brought A river of Blood, and preached that nothing else Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the might Of their own helper have been swept away; Their madness stands declared and visible; Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth March firmly towards righteousness and peace❞— Then schemes I framed more calmly, when and how The madding factions might be tranquillized, And how through hardships manifold and long The glorious renovation would proceed. Thus interrupted by uneasy bursts

Of exultation, I pursued my way

FROM that time forth, Authority in France
Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased,
Yet every thing was wanting that might give
Carage to them who looked for good by light
Of rational Experience, for the shoots
And hopeful blossoms of a second spring:
Yet, in me, confidence was unimpaired;
The Senate's language, and the public acts
And measures of the Government, though both
Weak, and of heartless omen, had not power
To daunt me; in the People was my trust:
And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,
I knew that wound external could not take
1 fe from the young Republic; that new foes
Would only follow, in the path of shame,
Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end
firent, universal, irresistible.

This intuition led me to confound
One victory with another, higher far,-

Triumphs of unambitious peace at home,
And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still
Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought
That what was in degree the same was likewise
The same in quality, that, as the worse
Of the two spirits then at strife remained
Untired, the better, surely, would preserve

The heart that first had roused him. Youth maintams,
In all conditions of society,

Communion more direct and intimate

With Nature,—hence, ofttimes, with reason too-
Than age or manhood, even. To Nature, then,
Power had reverted: habit, custom, law,
Had left an interregnum's open space
For her to move about in, uncontrolled.
Hence could I see how Babel-like their task,
Who, by the recent deluge stupified,
With their whole souls went culling from the day
Its petty promises, to build a tower

For their own safety; laughed with my compeers
At gravest heads, by enmity to France
Distempered, till they found in every blast
Forced from the street-disturbing newsman's horn,
For her great cause record or prophecy
Of utter ruin. How might we believe
That wisdom could, in any shape, come near
Men clinging to delusions so insane?
And thus experience proving that no few
Of our opinions had been just, we took
Like credit to ourselves where less was due,
And thought that other notions were as sound,
Yea, could not but be right because we saw
That foolish men opposed them.

To a strain
More animated I might here give way,
And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme,
What in those days, through Britain, was performed
To turn all judgments out of their right course;
But this is passion over-near ourselves,
Reality too close and too intense,

And intermixed with something, in my mind,
Of scorn and condemnation personal,
That would profane the sanctity of verse.
Our Shepherds, this say merely, at that time
Acted, or seemed at least to act, like men
Thirsting to make the guardian crook of law
A tool of murder; they who ruled the State,
Though with such awful proof before their eyes
That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse,
And can reap nothing better, child-like longed
To imitate, not wise enough to avoid;
Or left (by mere timidity betrayed)

The plain straight road, for one no better chosen
Than if their wish had been to undermine
Justice, and make an end of Liberty.

But from these bitter truths I must return
To my own history. It hath been told
That I was led to take an eager part
In arguments of civil polity,

Abruptly, and indeed before my time:

I had approached, like other youths, the shield
Of human nature from the golden side,

And would have fought, even to the death, to attest
The quality of the metal which I saw.
What there is best in individual man,
Of wise in passion, and sublime in power,
Benevolent in small societies,

And great in large ones, I had oft revolved,
Felt deeply, but not thoroughly understood
By reason nay, far from it; they were yet,
As cause was given me afterwards to learn,
Not proof against the injuries of the day;
Lodged only at the sanctuary's door,
Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared,
And with such general insight into evil,
And of the bounds which sever it from good,
As books and common intercourse with life

Must needs have given to the inexperienced mind
When the world travels in a beaten road,
Guide faithful as is needed- I began
To meditate with ardour on the rule
And management of nations; what it is
And ought to be; and strove to learn how far
Their power or weakness, wealth or poverty,
Their happiness or misery, depends
Upon their laws, and fashion of the State.

* O pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, us who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! O times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress-to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name! Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth, The beauty wore of promise that which sets (As at some moments might not be unfelt Among the bowers of Paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of! The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, The play-fellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength Their ministers, who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it; they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions, and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild, And in the region of their peaceful selves;Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty Did both find helpers to their heart's desire, And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,Were called upon to exercise their skill, Not in Utopia,-subterranean fields, — Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, the place where, in the end, We find our happiness, or not at all?

Why should I not confess that Earth was then To me, what an inheritance, new-fallen, Seems, when the first time visited, to one Who thither comes to find in it his home! He walks about and looks upon the spot With cordial transport, moulds it and remoulds,

*See ante, p. 188.