|
Book XI
1. Wordsworth's Celebration of the French Revolution
O pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! O times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress-to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name! Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth, The beauty wore of promise-that which sets (As at some moments might not be unfelt Among the bowers of Paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of? The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, The play-fellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtlety, and strength Their ministers,-who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it;-they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions; and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild, And in the region of their peaceful selves;- Now was it that both found; the meek and lofty Did both find helpers to their hearts' desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,- Were called upon to exercise their skill, Not in Utopia,-subterranean fields,- Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us,-the place where, in the end, We find our happiness, or not at all!(105-144)
2. Wordsworth's disenchantment about the revolutionary ideas
So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind, Suspiciously, to establish in plain day Her titles and her honours; now believing, Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground Of obligation, what the rule and whence The sanction; till, demanding formal proof, And seeking it in everything, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, Yielded up moral question in despair.(293-305)
 
|
