312

of life,

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

Small islands scattered amid stormy 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
Of the glad times when first I traversed
France

That eventide, when under windows bright-
A youthful pilgrim; above all reviewed
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 deathbed,

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 widespread plain,

With tender pleasure of the verses graven Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself: He loved the Poets, and, if now alive, Would have loved me, as one not destitute Of promise, nor belying the kind hope That he had formed, when I, at his command, Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.

Made manifest. times,"

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 tranquillised,

And how through hardships manifold and

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 Life from the young Republic; that new foes

Would only follow, in the path of shame, Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end

Great, 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
maintains,

In all conditions of society,

Communion more direct and intimate
With Nature, -hence, ofttimes, with reason

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.

1 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

1 See p. 234.

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 hearts' 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,

And is half-pleased with things that are amiss,

'Twill be such joy to see them disappear.

An active partisan, I thus convoked From every object pleasant circumstance To suit my ends; I moved among mankind

With genial feelings still predominant ;
When erring, erring on the better part,
And in the kinder spirit; placable,
Indulgent, as not uninformed that men
See as they have been taught-Antiquity
Gives rights to error; and aware, no less
That throwing off oppression must be work
As well of License as of Liberty;

And above all-for this was more than all

Not caring if the wind did now and then
Blow keen upon an eminence that gave
Prospect so large into futurity;

In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,
Diffusing only those affections wider

That from the cradle had grown up with me,

And losing, in no other way than light

Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.

In the main outline, such it might be said

Was my condition, till with open war
Britain opposed the liberties of France.
This threw me first out of the pale of love;
Soured and corrupted, upwards to the

source,

My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,
A swallowing up of lesser things in great,
But change of them into their contraries;
And thus a way was opened for mistakes
And false conclusions, in degree as gross,
In kind more dangerous. What had been

a pride,

Was now a shame; my likings and my

loves

Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;
And hence a blow that, in maturer age,
Would but have touched the judgment,
struck more deep

Into sensations near the heart: meantime,
As from the first, wild theories were afloat,
To whose pretensions, sedulously urged,
I had but lent a careless ear, assured
That time was ready to set all things right,
And that the multitude, so long oppressed,
Would be oppressed no more.

But when events Brought less encouragement, and unto these

The immediate proof of principles no more Could be entrusted, while the events themselves,

Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty, Less occupied the mind, and sentiments Could through my understanding's natural growth

No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained

Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid

Her hand upon her object-evidence
Safer, of universal application, such
As could not be impeached, was sought
elsewhere.

But now, become oppressors in their turn, Frenchmen had changed a war of selfdefence

For one of conquest, losing sight of all Which they had struggled for: up mounted

now,

Openly in the eye of earth and heaven, The scale of liberty. I read her doom,