THIS coming Sunday, France celebrates the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the start of the French Revolution.

Burns was not the only poet to be fascinated. Wordsworth's initial enthusiasm - shown here - about the new possibilities the event engendered turned to disillusionment at its excesses.

FRENCH REVOLUTION, AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS COMMENCEMENT

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven! – Oh! times

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once

The attraction of a country in romance!

. . .

Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;

Were called upon to exercise their skill,

Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,

Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world

Of all of us, the place where in the end

We find our happiness, or not at all!