ODE ΤΟ NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 1. "TIS done-but yesterday a King! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strew'd our Earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive? Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star, Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. 2. Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind By gazing on thyself grown blind, Thou taught'st the rest to see. With might unquestion'd,-power to save- S. Thanks for that lesson-it will teach To after-warriors more Than high Philosophy can preach, Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, 4. The triumph, and the vanity, The sword, the sceptre, and that sway All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be 5. The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others' fate Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? To die a prince-or live a slave- 6. He (2) who of old would rend the oak, Dream'd not of the rebound; Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke— Thou in the sternness of thy strength 7. The Roman, (3) 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 His only glory was that hour Of self-upheld abandon'd power. 8. The Spaniard, (4) when the lust of sway A strict accountant of his beads, Yet better had he neither known A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne. 9. But thou-from thy reluctant hand 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; |