* * * * *

BOOK ELEVENTH.

FRANCE—­concluded.

  From that time forth, [A] Authority in France
  Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased,
  Yet every thing was wanting that might give
  Courage to them who looked for good by light
  Of rational Experience, for the shoots 5
  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 10
  To daunt me; in the People was my trust,
  And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen. [1]
  I knew that wound external could not take
  Life from the young Republic; that new foes
  Would only follow, in the path of shame, 15
  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, 20
  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 25
  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—­30
  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, 35
  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 40
  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 45
  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, 50
  Yea, could not but be right, because we saw
  That foolish men opposed them. 
                                   To a strain
  More animated I might here give way,