Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/264

242 Watched every gesture uncontrollable,

Of anger, and vexation, and despite,

All side by side, and struggling face to face,

With gaiety and dissolute idleness.

Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust

Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,

And from the rubbish gathered up a stone,

And pocketed the relic, in the guise

Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,

I looked for something that I could not find,

Affecting more emotion than I felt;

For 'tis most certain, that these various sights,

However potent their first shock, with me

Appeared to recompense the traveller's pains

Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun,

A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair

Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek

Pale and bedropped with overflowing tears.

But hence to my more permanent abode

I hasten; there, by novelties in speech,

Domestic manners, customs, gestures, looks,

And all the attire of ordinary life,

Attention was engrossed; and, thus amused,