He quitted this same town

For the last time, attendant by the side

Of a close chair, a litter or sedan,

In which the child was carried. To a hill

Which rose at a league's distance from the town

The family of the house where he had lodged

Attended him, and parted from him there,

Watching below until he disappeared

On the hill-top. His eyes he scarcely took

Through all that journey from the chair in which

The babe was carried, and at every inn

Or place at which they halted or reposed

Laid him upon his knees, nor would permit

The hands of any but himself to dress

The infant, or undress. By one of those

Who bore the chair these facts, at his return,

Were told, and in relating them he wept.

 

This was the manner in which Vaudracour

Departed with his infant, and thus reached

His father's house, where to the innocent child

Admittance was denied. The young man spake

No words of indignation or reproof,

But of his father begged, a last request,

That a retreat might be assigned to him –

A house where in the country he might dwell

With such allowance as his wants required –

And the more lonely that the mansion was

'Twould be more welcome. To a lodge that stood

Deep in a forest, with leave given, at the age

Of four and twenty summers he retired,

And thither took with him his infant babe

And one domestic for their common needs,

An aged woman. It consoled him here

To attend upon the orphan and perform

The office of a nurse to his young child,

Which, after a short time, by some mistake

Or indiscretion of the father, died.

The tale I follow to its last recess

Of suffering or of peace, I know not which –

Theirs be the blame who caused the woe, not mine.

 

From that time forth he never uttered word

To any living. An inhabitant

Of that same town in which the pair had left

So lively a remembrance of their griefs,

By chance of business coming within reach

Of his retirement, to the spot repaired

With the intent to visit him; he reached

The house and only found the matron there,

Who told him that his pains were thrown away,

For that her master never uttered word

To living soul – not even to her. Behold,

While they were speaking Vaudracour approached,

But, seeing some one there, just as his hand

Was stretched towards the garden-gate, he shrunk

And like a shadow glided out of view.

Shocked at his savage outside, from the place

The visitor retired.

 

Thus lived the youth,

Cut off from all intelligence with man,

And shunning even the light of common day.

Nor could the voice of freedom, which through France

Soon afterwards resounded, public hope,

Or personal memory of his own deep wrongs,

Rouze him, but in those solitary shades

His days he wasted, an imbecile mind.

 

 

Book Tenth

Residence in France and French Revolution

It was a beautiful and silent day

That overspread the countenance of earth,

Then fading, with unusual quietness,

When from the Loire I parted, and through scenes

Of vineyard, orchard, meadow-ground and tilth,

Calm waters, gleams of sun, and breathless trees,

Towards the fierce metropolis turned my steps

Their homeward way to England. From his throne

The King had fallen; the congregated host –

Dire cloud, upon the front of which was written

The tender mercies of the dismal wind

That bore it – on the plains of Liberty

Had burst innocuously. Say more, the swarm

That came elate and jocund, like a band

Of eastern hunters, to enfold in ring

Narrowing itself by moments, and reduce

To the last punctual spot of their despair,

A race of victims – so they seemed – themselves

Had shrunk from sight of their own task, and fled

In terror. Desolation and dismay

Remained for them whose fancies had grown rank

With evil expectations: confidence

And perfect triumph to the better cause.

The state, as if to stamp the final seal

On her security, and to the world

Shew what she was, a high and fearless soul –

Or rather in a spirit of thanks to those

Who had stirred up her slackening faculties

To a new transition – had assumed with joy

The body and the venerable name

Of a republic. Lamentable crimes,

'Tis true, had gone before this hour – the work

Of massacre, in which the senseless sword

Was prayed to as a judge – but these were past,

Earth free from them for ever (as was thought),

Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once,

Things that could only shew themselves and die.

 

This was the time in which, enflamed with hope,

To Paris I returned. Again I ranged,

More eagerly than I had done before,

Through the wide city, and in progress passed

The prison where the unhappy monarch lay,

Associate with his children and his wife

In bondage, and the palace, lately stormed

With roar of cannon and a numerous host.

I crossed – a black and empty area then –

The square of the Carousel, few weeks back

Heaped up with dead and dying, upon these

And other sights looking as doth a man

Upon a volume whose contents he knows

Are memorable but from him locked up,

Being written in a tongue he cannot read,

So that he questions the mute leaves with pain,

And half upbraids their silence. But that night

When on my bed I lay, I was most moved

And felt most deeply in what world I was;

My room was high and lonely, near the roof

Of a large mansion or hotel, a spot

That would have pleased me in more quiet times –

Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.

With unextinguished taper I kept watch,

Reading at intervals. The fear gone by

Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.

I thought of those September massacres,

Divided from me by a little month,

And felt and touched them, a substantial dread

(The rest was conjured up from tragic fictions,

And mournful calendars of true history,

Remembrances and dim admonishments):

»The horse is taught his manage, and the wind

Of heaven wheels round and treads in his own steps;

Year follows year, the tide returns again,

Day follows day, all things have second birth;

The earthquake is not satisfied at once« –

And in such way I wrought upon myself,

Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried

To the whole city, »Sleep no more!« To this

Add comments of a calmer mind – from which

I could not gather full security –

But at the best it seemed a place of fear,

Unfit for the repose of night,

Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam.

 

Betimes next morning to the Palace-walk

Of Orleans I repaired, and entering there

Was greeted, among divers other notes,

By voices of the hawkers in the crowd

Bawling, Denunciation of the crimes

Of Maximilian Robespierre. The speech

Which in their hands they carried was the same

Which had been recently pronounced – the day

When Robespierre, well known for what mark

Some words of indirect reproof had been

Intended, rose in hardihood, and dared

The man who had ill surmise of him

To bring his charge in openness. Whereat,

When a dead pause ensued and no one stirred,

In silence of all present, from his seat

Louvet walked singly through the avenue

And took his station in the Tribune, saying,

»I, Robespierre, accuse thee!« 'Tis well known

What was the issue of that charge, and how

Louvet was left alone without support

Of his irresolute friends; but these are things

Of which I speak only as they were storm

Or sunshine to my individual mind,

No further. Let me then relate that now –

In some sort seeing with my proper eyes

That liberty, and life, and death, would soon

To the remotest corners of the land

Lie in the arbitrement of those who ruled

The capital city; what was struggled for,

And by what combatants victory must be won;

The indecision on their part whose aim

Seemed best, and the straightforward path of those

Who in attack or in defence alike

Were strong through their impiety – greatly I

Was agitated. Yea, I could almost

Have prayed that throughout earth upon all souls

Worthy of liberty, upon every soul

Matured to live in plainness and in truth,

The gift of tongues might fall, and men arrive

From the four quarters of the winds to do

For France what without help she could not do,

A work of honour – think not that to this

I added, work of safety: from such thought,

And the least fear about the end of things,

I was as far as angels are from guilt.

 

Yet did I grieve, nor only grieved, but thought

Of opposition and of remedies:

An insignificant stranger and obscure,

Mean as I was, and little graced with powers

Of eloquence even in my native speech,

And all unfit for tumult and intrigue,

Yet would I willingly have taken up

A service at this time for cause so great,

However dangerous. Inly I revolved

How much the destiny of man had still

Hung upon single persons; that there was,

Transcendent to all local patrimony,

One nature as there is one sun in heaven;

That objects, even as they are great, thereby

Do come within the reach of humblest eyes;

That man was only weak through his mistrust

And want of hope, where evidence divine

Proclaimed to him that hope should be most sure;

That, with desires heroic and firm sense,

A spirit thoroughly faithful to itself,

Unquenchable, unsleeping, undismayed,

Was as an instinct among men, a stream

That gathered up each petty straggling rill

And vein of water, glad to be rolled on

In safe obedience; that a mind whose rest

Was where it ought to be, in self-restraint,

In circumspection and simplicity,

Fell rarely in entire discomfiture

Below its aim, or met with from without

A treachery that defeated it or foiled.

 

On the other side, I called to mind those truths

Which are the commonplaces of the schools,

A theme for boys, too trite even to be felt,

Yet with a revelation's liveliness

In all their comprehensive bearings known

And visible to philosophers of old,

Men who, to business of the world untrained,

Lived in the shade; and to Harmodius known,

And his compeer Aristogiton; known

To Brutus – that tyrannic power is weak,

 

Hath neither gratitude, nor faith nor love,

Nor the support of good or evil men,

To trust in; that the godhead which is ours

Can never utterly be charmed or stilled;

That nothing hath a natural right to last

But equity and reason; that all else

Meets foes irreconcilable, and at best

Doth live but by variety of disease.

 

Well might my wishes be intense, my thoughts

Strong and perturbed, not doubting at that time –

Creed which ten shameful years have not annulled –

But that the virtue of one paramount mind

Would have abashed those impious crests, have quelled

Outrage and bloody power, and in despite

Of what the people were through ignorance

And immaturity, and in the teeth

Of desperate opposition from without,

Have cleared a passage for just government,

And left a solid birthright to the state,

Redeemed according to example given

By ancient lawgivers. In this frame of mind

Reluctantly to England I returned,

Compelled by nothing less than absolute want

Of funds for my support; else, well assured

That I both was and must be of small worth,

No better than an alien in the land,

I doubtless should have made a common cause

With some who perished, haply perished too –

A poor mistaken and bewildered offering,

Should to the breast of Nature have gone back,

With all my resolutions, all my hopes,

A poet only to myself, to men

Useless, and even, belovèd friend, a soul

To thee unknown.

 

When to my native land,

After a whole year's absence, I returned,

I found the air yet busy with the stir

Of a contention which had been raised up

Against the traffickers in Negro blood,

An effort which, though baffled, nevertheless

Had called back old forgotten principles

Dismissed from service, had diffused some truths,

And more of virtuous feeling, through the heart

Of the English people. And no few of those,

So numerous – little less in verity

Than a whole nation crying with one voice –

Who had been crossed in this their just intent

And righteous hope, thereby were well prepared

To let that journey sleep awhile, and join

Whatever other caravan appeared

To travel forward towards Liberty

With more success. For me that strife had ne'er

Fastened on my affections, nor did now

Its unsuccessful issue much excite

My sorrow, having laid this faith to heart,

That if France prospered good men would not long

Pay fruitless worship to humanity,

And this most rotten branch of human shame

(Object, as seemed, of a superfluous pains)

Would fall together with its parent tree.

 

Such was my then belief – that there was one,

And only one, solicitude for all.

And now the strength of Britain was put forth

In league with the confederated host;

Not in my single self alone I found,

But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,

Change and subversion from this hour. No shock

Given to my moral nature had I known

Down to that very moment – neither lapse

Nor turn of sentiment – that might be named

A revolution, save at this one time:

All else was progress on the self-same path

On which with a diversity of pace

I had been travelling; this, a stride at once

Into another region. True it is,

'Twas not concealed with what ungracious eyes

Our native rulers from the very first

Had looked upon regenerated France;

Nor had I doubted that this day would come –

But in such contemplation I had thought

Of general interests only, beyond this

Had never once foretasted the event.

Now had I other business, for I felt

The ravage of this most unnatural strife

In my own heart; there lay it like a weight,

At enmity with all the tenderest springs

Of my enjoyments. I, who with the breeze

Had played, a green leaf on the blessed tree

Of my beloved country – nor had wished

For happier fortune than to wither there –

Now from my pleasant station was cut off,

And tossed about in whirlwinds. I rejoiced,

Yes, afterwards, truth painful to record,

Exulted in the triumph of my soul

When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,

Left without glory on the field, or driven,

Brave hearts, to shameful flight.