O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines,
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things, -
Is this the man who scourged or feasted
kings?

Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,

A surgeon's statement and an earl's harangues!

A bust delay'd, a book refused, can shake The sleep of him who kept the world awake.

Is this indeed the tamer of the great, Now slave of all could tease or irritate The paltry gaoler and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh? Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;

70

And the stiff surgeon, who maintain'd his

cause,

Hath lost his place and gain'd the world's applause. But smile and heart Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face

Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace, though even

None stand by his low bed. the mind

Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind;

Smile for the fetter'd eagle breaks his chain,

And higher worlds than this are his again.

IV

How, if that soaring spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,
How must he smile, on looking down, to

see

91

The little that he was and sought to be! What though his name a wider empire found

Than his ambition, though with scarce a bound;

Though first in glory, deepest in reverse, He tasted empire's blessings and its curse; Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape From chains, would gladly be their tyrant's

80

though all the pangs of brain

ape;

How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,

The proudest sea-mark that o'ertops the wave!

100

What though his gaoler, duteous to the last, Scarce deem'd the coffin's lead could keep

him fast,

Refusing one poor line along the lid,
To date the birth and death of all it hid;
That name shall hallow the ignoble shore,
A talisman to all save him who bore.
The fleets that sweep before the eastern
blast

Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the
mast;
When Victory's Gallic column shall but
rise,

Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies, 110 The rocky isle that holds or held his dust Shall crown the Atlantic like the hero's

bust,

Alas! why pass'd he too the Rubicon
The Rubicon of man's awaken'd rights, 139
To herd with vulgar kings and parasites ?
Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose
Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose,
And shook within their pyramids to hear
A new Cambyses thundering in their ear;
While the dark shades of forty ages stood
Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood;
Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle
Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell,
With clashing hosts, who strew'd the bar-
ren sand

150

To re-manure the uncultivated land!
Spain which, a moment mindless of the
Cid,

Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid!
Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital
Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall!