the line
  Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop,
  Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk 55
  Of all who had a purpose, or had not;
  I stared and listened, with a stranger’s ears,
  To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild! 
  And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes,
  In knots, or pairs, or single.  Not a look 60
  Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear is forced to wear,
  But seemed there present; and I scanned them all,
  Watched every gesture uncontrollable,
  Of anger, and vexation, and despite,
  All side by side, and struggling face to face, 65
  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, [G] in the guise 70
  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 75
  Appeared to recompense the traveller’s pains
  Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun, [H]
  A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair
  Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek
  Pale and bedropped with everflowing tears. 80

  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, 85
  I stood, ’mid those concussions, unconcerned,
  Tranquil almost, and careless as a flower
  Glassed in a green-house, or a parlour shrub
  That spreads its leaves in unmolested peace,
  While every bush and tree, the country through, 90
  Is shaking to the roots:  indifference this
  Which may seem strange:  but I was unprepared
  With needful knowledge, had abruptly passed
  Into a theatre, whose stage was filled
  And busy with an action far advanced. 95
  Like others, I had skimmed, and sometimes read
  With care, the master pamphlets of the day;
  Nor wanted such half-insight as grew wild
  Upon that meagre soil, helped out by talk
  And public news; but having never seen 100
  A chronicle that might suffice to show
  Whence the main organs of the public power
  Had sprung, their transmigrations, when and how
  Accomplished, giving thus unto events
  A form and body; all things were to me 105
  Loose and disjointed, and the affections left
  Without a vital interest.  At that time,
  Moreover, the first storm was overblown,