Such was the state of things. Meanwhile the chief Of my associates stood prepared for flight To augment the band of emigrants in arms [L] Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued With foreign foes mustered for instant war. 185 This was their undisguised intent, and they Were waiting with the whole of their desires The moment to depart. An Englishman, Born in a land whose very name appeared To license some unruliness of mind; 190 A stranger, with youth's further privilege, And the indulgence that a half-learnt speech Wins from the courteous; I, who had been else Shunned and not tolerated, freely lived With these defenders of the Crown, and talked, 195 And heard their notions; nor did they disdain The wish to bring me over to their cause. But though untaught by thinking or by books To reason well of polity or law, And nice distinctions, then on every tongue, 200 Of natural rights and civil; and to acts Of nations and their passing interests, (If with unworldly ends and aims compared) Almost indifferent, even the historian's tale Prizing but little otherwise than I prized 205 Tales of the poets, as it made the heart Beat high, and filled the fancy with fair forms, Old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds; Yet in the regal sceptre, and the pomp Of orders and degrees, I nothing found 210 Then, or had ever, even in crudest youth, That dazzled me, but rather what I mourned And ill could brook, beholding that the best Ruled not, and feeling that they ought to rule.