And as the desert hath green spots, the sea
  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 485
  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 490
  Of the glad times when first I traversed France
  A youthful pilgrim; [V] above all reviewed
  That eventide, when under windows bright
  With happy faces and with garlands hung,
  And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street, 495
  Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed, [W]
  I paced, a dear companion at my side,
  The town of Arras, [X] whence with promise high
  Issued, on delegation to sustain
  Humanity and right, that Robespierre, 500
  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 505
  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. 510

    O Friend! few happier moments have been mine
  Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
  So dreaded, so abhorred. [Y] The day deserves
  A separate record.  Over the smooth sands
  Of Leven’s ample estuary lay 515
  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 520
  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 525
  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. 530
  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, [Z]
  And on the stone were graven by his desire 535
  Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.