69
XXXI.
FRENCH REVOLUTION,
AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS COMMENCEMENT[1].
Reprinted from "The Friend."
Oh! 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!—Oh! 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
- ↑ This, and the Extract, vol. I. page 44, and the first Piece of this Class, are from the unpublished Poem of which some account is given in the Preface to the Excursion.
