Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/294

272 "I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" Well is known

The inglorious issue of that charge, and how

He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt,

The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded,

Was left without a follower to discharge

His perilous duty, and retire lamenting

That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men

Who to themselves are false.

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 were strong

Through their impiety—my inmost soul

Was agitated; yea, I could almost

Have prayed that throughout earth upon all men,

By patient exercise of reason made