160
  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 165
  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, 170
  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. [E] 175
  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; 180
  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; 185
  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, 190
  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 195
  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 200
  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. 205

  But now, become oppressors in their turn,
  Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence
  For one of conquest, [F] losing sight of all
  Which they had struggled for:  now mounted up,
  Openly in the eye of earth and heaven, 210
  The scale of liberty.  I read her doom,
  With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,
  But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame
  Of a false prophet.  While resentment rose
  Striving to hide, what nought could heal,