And for a moment, men from far with sound
  Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread,
  Entering the city, here and there a face,
  Or person singled out among the rest,
  Yet still a stranger and beloved as such; 280
  Even by these passing spectacles my heart
  Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed
  Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause
  Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,
  Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud, 285
  Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
  Hater perverse of equity and truth.

    Among that band of Officers was one,
  Already hinted at, [N] of other mould—­
  A patriot, thence rejected by the rest, 290
  And with an oriental loathing spurned,
  As of a different caste.  A meeker man
  Than this lived never, nor a more benign,
  Meek though enthusiastic.  Injuries
  Made him more gracious, and his nature then 295
  Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,
  As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf,
  When foot hath crushed them.  He through the events
  Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,
  As through a book, an old romance, or tale 300
  Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought
  Behind the summer clouds.  By birth he ranked
  With the most noble, but unto the poor
  Among mankind he was in service bound,
  As by some tie invisible, oaths professed 305
  To a religious order.  Man he loved
  As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
  And all the homely in their homely works,
  Transferred a courtesy which had no air
  Of condescension; but did rather seem 310
  A passion and a gallantry, like that
  Which he, a soldier, in his idler day
  Had paid to woman:  somewhat vain he was,
  Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
  But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy 315
  Diffused around him, while he was intent
  On works of love or freedom, or revolved
  Complacently the progress of a cause,
  Whereof he was a part:  yet this was meek
  And placid, and took nothing from the man 320
  That was delightful.  Oft in solitude
  With him did I discourse about the end
  Of civil government, and its wisest forms;
  Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,
  Custom and habit, novelty and change; 325
  Of self-respect, and virtue in the few
  For patrimonial honour set apart,
  And ignorance in the labouring multitude. 
  For he, to all intolerance indisposed,
  Balanced these contemplations in his mind; 330
  And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped
  Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment