The State, as if to stamp the final seal On her security, and to the world Show what she was, a high and fearless soul, Exulting in defiance, or heart-stung By sharp resentment, or belike to taunt 35 With spiteful gratitude the baffled League, That had stirred up her slackening faculties To a new transition, when the King was crushed, Spared not the empty throne, and in proud haste Assumed the body and venerable name 40 Of a Republic. [D] Lamentable crimes, 'Tis true, had gone before this hour, dire work Of massacre, [E] in which the senseless sword Was prayed to as a judge; but these were past, Earth free from them for ever, as was thought,--45 Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once! Things that could only show themselves and die. Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned, [F] And ranged, with ardour heretofore unfelt, The spacious city, and in progress passed 50 The prison where the unhappy Monarch lay, Associate with his children and his wife In bondage; and the palace, lately stormed With roar of cannon by a furious host. I crossed the square (an empty area then!) [G] 55 Of the Carrousel, where so late had lain The dead, upon the dying heaped, and gazed On this and other spots, as doth a man Upon a volume whose contents he knows Are memorable, but from him locked up, 60 Being written in a tongue he cannot read, So that he questions the mute leaves with pain, And half upbraids their silence. But that night I felt most deeply in what world I was, What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed. 65 High was my room and lonely, near the roof Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge That would have pleased me in more quiet times; Nor was it wholly without pleasure then. With unextinguished taper I kept watch, 70 Reading at intervals; the fear gone by Pressed on me almost like a fear to come. I thought of those September massacres, Divided from me by one little month, [H] Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up 75 From tragic fictions or true history, Remembrances and dim admonishments. The horse is taught his manage, and no star Of wildest course but treads back his own steps; For the spent hurricane the air provides 80 As fierce a successor; the tide retreats But to return out of its hiding-place In the great deep; all things have second-birth; The earthquake is not satisfied at once; And in this way I wrought upon myself, 85 Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried, To the whole city, "Sleep no more." The trance Fled with the voice to which it had given birth; But vainly comments of a calmer mind Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness.