ODE TO NAPOLEON

Is done-but yesterday a King,

And armed with Kings to strive;
And now thou art a nameless thing,
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,

And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind

Who bowed so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,

Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestioned-power to save-
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshiped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach

To after-warriors more

Than high Philosophy can preach,

And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore

Those pagod things of sabre sway,
With fronts of brass and feet of clay.

The triumph and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife*.
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life-
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife -

All quelled!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

* «Certaminis gaudia"- the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Châlons.

The Desolator desolate!

The victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate

A Suppliant for his own!

Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly cope,
Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince, or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak*
Dreamed not of the rebound;
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke-
Alone - how looked he round!

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman,t when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart
In savage grandeur, home:

He dared depart, in utter scorn

Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour

Of self-upheld abandoned power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,

Cast crowns for rosaries away,

An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,

A subtle disputant on creeds,

His dotage trifled well:

Yet better had he neither known

A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung;

* Milo of Croton.

+ Sulla.

The Emperor Charles V., who abdicated in 1555.

Too late thou leav'st the high command

To which thy weakness clung;

All Evil Spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,

Who thus can hoard his own!

And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain -

Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:

If thou hadst died, as honor dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again;
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weighed in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;

Thy scales, Mortality! are just

To all that pass away;

But yet methought the living great

Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay:

Nor deemed Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,

Thy still imperial bride,

How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?

Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem 'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile-

It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue* hath now
Transferred his byword to thy brow.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage,

What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one "The world was mine!"
Unless, like him of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth -
So long obeyed-so little worth!

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ›

HERE was a sound of revelry by night,

THE

And Belgium's capital had gathered then.
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.
But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat,
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! arm! it is-it is the cannon's opening roar!

* Dionysius of Sicily, who, after his fall, kept a school at Corinth.

Within a windowed niche of that high hall

Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,

Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and foremost fighting, fell.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness:
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts; and choking sighs,
Which ne'er might be repeated: who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering with white lips-"The foe! They come! they come!»

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills

Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring which instills

The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave - alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass