<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539941" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book Tenth {Residence in France continued]</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IT was a beautiful and silent day<br>That overspread the countenance of earth,<br>Then fading with unusual quietness,--<br>A day as beautiful as e'er was given<br>To soothe regret, though deepening what it soothed,<br>When by the gliding Loire I paused, and cast<br>Upon his rich domains, vineyard and tilth,<br>Green meadow-ground, and many-coloured woods,<br>Again, and yet again, a farewell look;<br>Then from the quiet of that scene passed on, <br>Bound to the fierce Metropolis. From his throne<br>The King had fallen, and that invading host--<br>Presumptuous cloud, on whose black front was written<br>The tender mercies of the dismal wind<br>That bore it--on the plains of Liberty<br>Had burst innocuous. Say in bolder words,<br>They--who had come elate as eastern hunters<br>Banded beneath the Great Mogul, when he<br>Erewhile went forth from Agra or Lahore,<br>Rajahs and Omrahs in his train, intent <br>To drive their prey enclosed within a ring<br>Wide as a province, but, the signal given,<br>Before the point of the life-threatening spear<br>Narrowing itself by moments--they, rash men,<br>Had seen the anticipated quarry turned<br>Into avengers, from whose wrath they fled<br>In terror. Disappointment and dismay<br>Remained for all whose fancies had run wild<br>With evil expectations; confidence<br>And perfect triumph for the better cause. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The State--as if to stamp the final seal<br>On her security, and to the world<br>Show what she was, a high and fearless soul,<br>Exulting in defiance, or heart-stung<br>By sharp resentment, or belike to taunt<br>With spiteful gratitude the baffled League,<br>That had stirred up her slackening faculties<br>To a new transition--when the King was crushed,<br>Spared not the empty throne, and in proud haste<br>Assumed the body and venerable name <br>Of a Republic. Lamentable crimes,<br>'Tis true, had gone before this hour, dire work<br>Of massacre, in which the senseless sword<br>Was prayed to as a judge; but these were past,<br>Earth free from them for ever, as was thought,--<br>Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once!<br>Things that could only show themselves and die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned,<br>And ranged, with ardour heretofore unfelt,<br>The spacious city, and in progress passed <br>The prison where the unhappy Monarch lay,<br>Associate with his children and his wife<br>In bondage; and the palace, lately stormed<br>With roar of cannon by a furious host.<br>I crossed the square (an empty area then!)<br>Of the Carrousel, where so late had lain<br>The dead, upon the dying heaped, and gazed<br>On this and other spots, as doth a man<br>Upon a volume whose contents he knows<br>Are memorable, but from him locked up, <br>Being written in a tongue he cannot read,<br>So that he questions the mute leaves with pain,<br>And half upbraids their silence. But that night<br>I felt most deeply in what world I was,<br>What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed.<br>High was my room and lonely, near the roof<br>Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge<br>That would have pleased me in more quiet times;<br>Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.<br>With unextinguished taper I kept watch, <br>Reading at intervals; the fear gone by<br>Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.<br>I thought of those September massacres,<br>Divided from me by one little month,<br>Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up<br>From tragic fictions or true history,<br>Remembrances and dim admonishments.<br>The horse is taught his manage, and no star<br>Of wildest course but treads back his own steps;<br>For the spent hurricane the air provides <br>As fierce a successor; the tide retreats<br>But to return out of its hiding-place<br>In the great deep; all things have second birth;<br>The earthquake is not satisfied at once;<br>And in this way I wrought upon myself,<br>Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried,<br>To the whole city, 'Sleep no more.' The trance<br>Fled with the voice to which it had given birth;<br>But vainly comments of a calmer mind<br>Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness. <br>The place, all hushed and silent as it was,<br>Appeared unfit for the repose of night,<br>Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With early morning towards the Palace-walk<br>Of Orleans eagerly I turned: as yet<br>The streets were still; not so those long Arcades;<br>There, 'mid a peal of ill-matched sounds and cries,<br>That greeted me on entering, I could hear<br>Shrill voices from the hawkers in the throng,<br>Bawling, 'Denunciation of the Crimes <br>Of Maximilian Robespierre;' the hand,<br>Prompt as the voice, held forth a printed speech,<br>The same that had been recently pronounced,<br>When Robespierre, not ignorant for what mark<br>Some words of indirect reproof had been<br>Intended, rose in hardihood, and dared<br>The man who had an ill surmise of him<br>To bring his charge in openness; whereat,<br>When a dead pause ensued, and no one stirred,<br>In silence of all present, from his seat <br>Louvet walked single through the avenue,<br>And took his station in the Tribune, saying,<br>'I, Robespierre, accuse thee!' Well is known<br>The inglorious issue of that charge, and how<br>He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt,<br>The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded,<br>Was left without a follower to discharge<br>His perilous duty, and retire lamenting<br>That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men<br>Who to themselves are false.<br>But these are things <br>Of which I speak, only as they were storm<br>Or sunshine to my individual mind,<br>No further. Let me then relate that now--<br>In some sort seeing with my proper eyes<br>That Liberty, and Life, and Death, would soon<br>To the remotest corners of the land<br>Lie in the arbitrement of those who ruled<br>The capital City; what was struggled for,<br>And by what combatants victory must be won;<br>The indecision on their part whose aim <br>Seemed best, and the straightforward path of those<br>Who in attack or in defence were strong<br>Through their impiety--my inmost soul<br>Was agitated; yea, I could almost<br>Have prayed that throughout earth upon all men,<br>By patient exercise of reason made<br>Worthy of liberty, all spirits filled<br>With zeal expanding in Truth's holy light,<br>The gift of tongues might fall, and power arrive<br>From the four quarters of the winds to do <br>For France, what without help she could not do,<br>A work of honour; think not that to this<br>I added, work of safety: from all doubt<br>Or trepidation for the end of things<br>Far was I, far as angels are from guilt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet did I grieve, nor only grieved, but thought<br>Of opposition and of remedies:<br>An insignificant stranger and obscure,<br>And one, moreover, little graced with power<br>Of eloquence even in my native speech, <br>And all unfit for tumult or intrigue,<br>Yet would I at this time with willing heart<br>Have undertaken for a cause so great<br>Service however dangerous. I revolved,<br>How much the destiny of Man had still<br>Hung upon single persons; that there was,<br>Transcendent to all local patrimony,<br>One nature, as there is one sun in heaven;<br>That objects, even as they are great, thereby<br>Do come within the reach of humblest eyes; <br>That Man is only weak through his mistrust<br>And want of hope where evidence divine<br>Proclaims to him that hope should be most sure;<br>Nor did the inexperience of my youth<br>Preclude conviction, that a spirit strong<br>In hope, and trained to noble aspirations,<br>A spirit thoroughly faithful to itself,<br>Is for Society's unreasoning herd<br>A domineering instinct, serves at once<br>For way and guide, a fluent receptacle <br>That gathers up each petty straggling rill<br>And vein of water, glad to be rolled on<br>In safe obedience; that a mind, whose rest<br>Is where it ought to be, in self-restraint,<br>In circumspection and simplicity,<br>Falls rarely in entire discomfiture<br>Below its aim, or meets with, from without,<br>A treachery that foils it or defeats;<br>And, lastly, if the means on human will,<br>Frail human will, dependent should betray <br>Him who too boldly trusted them, I felt<br>That 'mid the loud distractions of the world<br>A sovereign voice subsists within the soul,<br>Arbiter undisturbed of right and wrong,<br>Of life and death, in majesty severe<br>Enjoining, as may best promote the aims<br>Of truth and justice, either sacrifice,<br>From whatsoever region of our cares<br>Or our infirm affections Nature pleads,<br>Earnest and blind, against the stern decree. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">On the other side, I called to mind those truths<br>That are the commonplaces of the schools--<br>(A theme for boys, too hackneyed for their sires,)<br>Yet, with a revelation's liveliness,<br>In all their comprehensive bearings known<br>And visible to philosophers of old,<br>Men who, to business of the world untrained,<br>Lived in the shade; and to Harmodius known<br>And his compeer Aristogiton, known<br>To Brutus--that tyrannic power is weak, <br>Hath neither gratitude, nor faith, nor love,<br>Nor the support of good or evil men<br>To trust in; that the godhead which is ours<br>Can never utterly be charmed or stilled;<br>That nothing hath a natural right to last<br>But equity and reason; that all else<br>Meets foes irreconcilable, and at best<br>Lives only by variety of disease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well might my wishes be intense, my thoughts<br>Strong and perturbed, not doubting at that time <br>But that the virtue of one paramount mind<br>Would have abashed those impious crests--have quelled<br>Outrage and bloody power, and--in despite<br>Of what the People long had been and were<br>Through ignorance and false teaching, sadder proof<br>Of immaturity, and--in the teeth<br>Of desperate opposition from without--<br>Have cleared a passage for just government,<br>And left a solid birthright to the State,<br>Redeemed, according to example given <br>By ancient lawgivers.<br>In this frame of mind,<br>Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity,<br>So seemed it,--now I thankfully acknowledge,<br>Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven,--<br>To England I returned, else (though assured<br>That I both was and must be of small weight,<br>No better than a landsman on the deck<br>Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm)<br>Doubtless, I should have then made common cause<br>With some who perished; haply perished too, <br>A poor mistaken and bewildered offering,--<br>Should to the breast of Nature have gone back,<br>With all my resolutions, all my hopes,<br>A Poet only to myself, to men<br>Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul<br>To thee unknown!<br>Twice had the trees let fall<br>Their leaves, as often Winter had put on<br>His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge<br>Beat against Albion's shore, since ear of mine<br>Had caught the accents of my native speech <br>Upon our native country's sacred ground.<br>A patriot of the world, how could I glide<br>Into communion with her sylvan shades,<br>Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more<br>To abide in the great City, where I found<br>The general air still busy with the stir<br>Of that first memorable onset made<br>By a strong levy of humanity<br>Upon the traffickers in Negro blood;<br>Effort which, though defeated, had recalled <br>To notice old forgotten principles,<br>And through the nation spread a novel heat<br>Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own<br>That this particular strife had wanted power<br>To rivet my affections; nor did now<br>Its unsuccessful issue much excite<br>My sorrow; for I brought with me the faith<br>That, if France prospered, good men would not long<br>Pay fruitless worship to humanity,<br>And this most rotten branch of human shame, <br>Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains<br>Would fall together with its parent tree.<br>What, then, were my emotions, when in arms<br>Britain put forth her free-born strength in league,<br>Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate Powers!<br>Not in my single self alone I found,<br>But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,<br>Change and subversion from that hour. No shock<br>Given to my moral nature had I known<br>Down to that very moment; neither lapse <br>Nor turn of sentiment that might be named<br>A revolution, save at this one time;<br>All else was progress on the self-same path<br>On which, with a diversity of pace,<br>I had been travelling: this a stride at once<br>Into another region. As a light<br>And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze<br>On some grey rock--its birth-place--so had I<br>Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower<br>Of my beloved country, wishing not <br>A happier fortune than to wither there:<br>Now was I from that pleasant station torn<br>And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced,<br>Yea, afterwards--truth most painful to record!--<br>Exulted, in the triumph of my soul,<br>When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,<br>Left without glory on the field, or driven,<br>Brave hearts! to shameful flight. It was a grief,--<br>Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that,--<br>A conflict of sensations without name, <br>Of which 'he' only, who may love the sight<br>Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge,<br>When, in the congregation bending all<br>To their great Father, prayers were offered up,<br>Or praises for our country's victories;<br>And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance<br>I only, like an uninvited guest<br>Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add,<br>Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! much have they to account for, who could tear, <br>By violence, at one decisive rent,<br>From the best youth in England their dear pride,<br>Their joy, in England; this, too, at a time<br>In which worst losses easily might wean<br>The best of names, when patriotic love<br>Did of itself in modesty give way,<br>Like the Precursor when the Deity<br>Is come Whose harbinger he was; a time<br>In which apostasy from ancient faith<br>Seemed but conversion to a higher creed; <br>Withal a season dangerous and wild,<br>A time when sage Experience would have snatched<br>Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose<br>A chaplet in contempt of his grey locks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag<br>In that unworthy service was prepared<br>To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,<br>A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;<br>I saw them in their rest, a sojourner<br>Through a whole month of calm and glassy days <br>In that delightful island which protects<br>Their place of convocation--there I heard,<br>Each evening, pacing by the still sea-shore,<br>A monitory sound that never failed,--<br>The sunset cannon. While the orb went down<br>In the tranquillity of nature, came<br>That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me<br>Without a spirit overcast by dark<br>Imaginations, sense of woes to come,<br>Sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In France, the men, who, for their desperate ends,<br>Had plucked up mercy by the roots, were glad<br>Of this new enemy. Tyrants, strong before<br>In wicked pleas, were strong as demons now;<br>And thus, on every side beset with foes,<br>The goaded land waxed mad; the crimes of few<br>Spread into madness of the many; blasts<br>From hell came sanctified like airs from heaven.<br>The sternness of the just, the faith of those<br>Who doubted not that Providence had times <br>Of vengeful retribution, theirs who throned<br>The human Understanding paramount<br>And made of that their God, the hopes of men<br>Who were content to barter short-lived pangs<br>For a paradise of ages, the blind rage<br>Of insolent tempers, the light vanity<br>Of intermeddlers, steady purposes<br>Of the suspicious, slips of the indiscreet,<br>And all the accidents of life--were pressed<br>Into one service, busy with one work. <br>The Senate stood aghast, her prudence quenched,<br>Her wisdom stifled, and her justice scared,<br>Her frenzy only active to extol<br>Past outrages, and shape the way for new,<br>Which no one dared to oppose or mitigate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Domestic carnage now filled the whole year<br>With feast-days; old men from the chimney-nook,<br>The maiden from the bosom of her love,<br>The mother from the cradle of her babe,<br>The warrior from the field--all perished, all-- <br>Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,<br>Head after head, and never heads enough<br>For those that bade them fall. They found their joy,<br>They made it proudly, eager as a child,<br>(If like desires of innocent little ones<br>May with such heinous appetites be compared),<br>Pleased in some open field to exercise<br>A toy that mimics with revolving wings<br>The motion of a wind-mill; though the air<br>Do of itself blow fresh, and make the vanes <br>Spin in his eyesight, 'that' contents him not,<br>But with the plaything at arm's length, he sets<br>His front against the blast, and runs amain,<br>That it may whirl the faster.<br>Amid the depth<br>Of those enormities, even thinking minds<br>Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being<br>Forgot that such a sound was ever heard<br>As Liberty upon earth: yet all beneath<br>Her innocent authority was wrought,<br>Nor could have been, without her blessed name. <br>The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour<br>Of her composure, felt that agony,<br>And gave it vent in her last words. O Friend!<br>It was a lamentable time for man,<br>Whether a hope had e'er been his or not:<br>A woful time for them whose hopes survived<br>The shock; most woful for those few who still<br>Were flattered, and had trust in human kind:<br>They had the deepest feeling of the grief.<br>Meanwhile the Invaders fared as they deserved: <br>The Herculean Commonwealth had put forth her arms,<br>And throttled with an infant godhead's might<br>The snakes about her cradle; that was well,<br>And as it should be; yet no cure for them<br>Whose souls were sick with pain of what would be<br>Hereafter brought in charge against mankind.<br>Most melancholy at that time, O Friend!<br>Were my day-thoughts,--my nights were miserable;<br>Through months, through years, long after the last beat<br>Of those atrocities, the hour of sleep <br>To me came rarely charged with natural gifts,<br>Such ghastly visions had I of despair<br>And tyranny, and implements of death;<br>And innocent victims sinking under fear,<br>And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer,<br>Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds<br>For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth<br>And levity in dungeons, where the dust<br>Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene<br>Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me <br>In long orations, which I strove to plead<br>Before unjust tribunals,--with a voice<br>Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense,<br>Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt<br>In the last place of refuge--my own soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When I began in youth's delightful prime<br>To yield myself to Nature, when that strong<br>And holy passion overcame me first,<br>Nor day nor night, evening or morn, was free<br>From its oppression. But, O Power Supreme! <br>Without Whose call this world would cease to breathe<br>Who from the fountain of Thy grace dost fill<br>The veins that branch through every frame of life,<br>Making man what he is, creature divine,<br>In single or in social eminence,<br>Above the rest raised infinite ascents<br>When reason that enables him to be<br>Is not sequestered--what a change is here!<br>How different ritual for this after-worship,<br>What countenance to promote this second love! <br>The first was service paid to things which lie<br>Guarded within the bosom of Thy will.<br>Therefore to serve was high beatitude;<br>Tumult was therefore gladness, and the fear<br>Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure,<br>And waking thoughts more rich than happiest dreams.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as the ancient Prophets, borne aloft<br>In vision, yet constrained by natural laws<br>With them to take a troubled human heart,<br>Wanted not consolations, nor a creed <br>Of reconcilement, then when they denounced,<br>On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss<br>Of their offences, punishment to come;<br>Or saw, like other men, with bodily eyes,<br>Before them, in some desolated place,<br>The wrath consummate and the threat fulfilled;<br>So, with devout humility be it said,<br>So, did a portion of that spirit fall<br>On me uplifted from the vantage-ground<br>Of pity and sorrow to a state of being <br>That through the time's exceeding fierceness saw<br>Glimpses of retribution, terrible,<br>And in the order of sublime behests:<br>But, even if that were not, amid the awe<br>Of unintelligible chastisement,<br>Not only acquiescences of faith<br>Survived, but daring sympathies with power,<br>Motions not treacherous or profane, else why<br>Within the folds of no ungentle breast<br>Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged? <br>Wild blasts of music thus could find their way<br>Into the midst of turbulent events;<br>So that worst tempests might be listened to.<br>Then was the truth received into my heart,<br>That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,<br>If from the affliction somewhere do not grow<br>Honour which could not else have been, a faith,<br>An elevation, and a sanctity,<br>If new strength be not given nor old restored,<br>The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt <br>Was taken up by scoffers in their pride,<br>Saying, 'Behold the harvest that we reap<br>From popular government and equality,'<br>I clearly saw that neither these nor aught<br>Of wild belief engrafted on their names<br>By false philosophy had caused the woe,<br>But a terrific reservoir of guilt<br>And ignorance filled up from age to age,<br>That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,<br>But burst and spread in deluge through the land. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as the desert hath green spots, the sea<br>Small islands scattered amid stormy waves,<br>So 'that' disastrous period did not want<br>Bright sprinklings of all human excellence,<br>To which the silver wands of saints in Heaven<br>Might point with rapturous joy. Yet not the less,<br>For those examples, in no age surpassed,<br>Of fortitude and energy and love,<br>And human nature faithful to herself<br>Under worst trials, was I driven to think <br>Of the glad times when first I traversed France<br>A youthful pilgrim; above all reviewed<br>That eventide, when under windows bright<br>With happy faces and with garlands hung,<br>And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street,<br>Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed,<br>I paced, a dear companion at my side,<br>The town of Arras, whence with promise high<br>Issued, on delegation to sustain<br>Humanity and right, 'that' Robespierre, <br>He who thereafter, and in how short time!<br>Wielded the sceptre of the Atheist crew.<br>When the calamity spread far and wide--<br>And this same city, that did then appear<br>To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned<br>Under the vengeance of her cruel son,<br>As Lear reproached the winds--I could almost<br>Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle<br>For lingering yet an image in my mind<br>To mock me under such a strange reverse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Friend! few happier moments have been mine<br>Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe<br>So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves<br>A separate record. Over the smooth sands<br>Of Leven's ample estuary lay<br>My journey, and beneath a genial sun,<br>With distant prospect among gleams of sky<br>And clouds and intermingling mountain tops,<br>In one inseparable glory clad,<br>Creatures of one ethereal substance met <br>In consistory, like a diadem<br>Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit<br>In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp<br>Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales<br>Among whose happy fields I had grown up<br>From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,<br>That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed<br>Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw<br>Sad opposites out of the inner heart,<br>As even their pensive influence drew from mine. <br>How could it otherwise? for not in vain<br>That very morning had I turned aside<br>To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves,<br>An honoured teacher of my youth was laid,<br>And on the stone were graven by his desire<br>Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.<br>This faithful guide, speaking from his deathbed,<br>Added no farewell to his parting counsel,<br>But said to me, 'My head will soon lie low;'<br>And when I saw the turf that covered him, <br>After the lapse of full eight years, those words,<br>With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,<br>Came back upon me, so that some few tears<br>Fell from me in my own despite. But now<br>I thought, still traversing that widespread plain,<br>With tender pleasure of the verses graven<br>Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself:<br>He loved the Poets, and, if now alive,<br>Would have loved me, as one not destitute<br>Of promise, nor belying the kind hope <br>That he had formed, when I, at his command,<br>Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As I advanced, all that I saw or felt<br>Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small<br>And rocky island near, a fragment stood,<br>(Itself like a sea rock) the low remains<br>(With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds)<br>Of a dilapidated structure, once<br>A Romish chapel, where the vested priest<br>Said matins at the hour that suited those <br>Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.<br>Not far from that still ruin all the plain<br>Lay spotted with a variegated crowd<br>Of vehicles and travellers, horse and foot,<br>Wading beneath the conduct of their guide<br>In loose procession through the shallow stream<br>Of inland waters; the great sea meanwhile<br>Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused,<br>Longing for skill to paint a scene so bright<br>And cheerful, but the foremost of the band <br>As he approached, no salutation given<br>In the familiar language of the day,<br>Cried, 'Robespierre is dead!' nor was a doubt,<br>After strict question, left within my mind<br>That he and his supporters all were fallen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great was my transport, deep my gratitude<br>To everlasting Justice, by this fiat<br>Made manifest. 'Come now, ye golden times,'<br>Said I forth-pouring on those open sands<br>A hymn of triumph: 'as the morning comes <br>From out the bosom of the night, come ye:<br>Thus far our trust is verified; behold!<br>They who with clumsy desperation brought<br>A river of Blood, and preached that nothing else<br>Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the might<br>Of their own helper have been swept away;<br>Their madness stands declared and visible;<br>Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth<br>March firmly towards righteousness and peace.'--<br>Then schemes I framed more calmly, when and how <br>The madding factions might be tranquillised,<br>And how through hardships manifold and long<br>The glorious renovation would proceed.<br>Thus interrupted by uneasy bursts<br>Of exultation, I pursued my way<br>Along that very shore which I had skimmed<br>In former days, when--spurring from the Vale<br>Of Nightshade, and St. Mary's mouldering fane,<br>And the stone abbot, after circuit made<br>In wantonness of heart, a joyous band <br>Of schoolboys hastening to their distant home<br>Along the margin of the moonlight sea--<br>We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Wordsworth">William Wordsworth</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539941" data-title="Book Tenth {Residence in France continued] de William Wordsworth" data-description="IT was a beautiful and silent day That overspread the countenance of earth, Then fading with unusual quietness,-- A day as beautiful as e'er was given To soothe regret, though deepening what it soothed, When by the gliding Loire I paused, and cast..."></div> </div> </div>

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