BOOK ELEVENTH.

FRANCE.

CONCLUDED.

FRANCE.

CONCLUDED.

FROM that time forth, Authority in France Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased, Yet everything was wanting that might give Courage 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 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 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 stupefied,

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, thro' 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