Ode To Napoleon Buonaparte

1. 1'Tis done--but yesterday a King!
2. 2And armed with Kings to strive--
3. 3And now thou art a nameless thing:
4. 4So abject--yet alive!
5. 5Is this the man of thousand thrones,
6. 6Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
7. 7And can he thus survive?
8. 8Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
9. 9Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

1. 10Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
2. 11Who bowed so low the knee?
3. 12By gazing on thyself grown blind,
4. 13Thou taught'st the rest to see.
5. 14With might unquestioned,--power to save,--
6. 15Thine only gift hath been the grave
7. 16To those that worshipped thee;
8. 17Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
9. 18Ambition's less than littleness!

1. 19Thanks for that lesson--it will teach
2. 20To after-warriors more
3. 21Than high Philosophy can preach,
4. 22And vainly preached before.
5. 23That spell upon the minds of men
6. 24Breaks never to unite again,
7. 25That led them to adore
8. 26Those Pagod things of sabre-sway,
9. 27With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

1. 28The triumph, and the vanity,
2. 29The rapture of the strife--
3. 30The earthquake-voice of Victory,
4. 31To thee the breath of life;
5. 32The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
6. 33Which man seemed made but to obey,
7. 34Wherewith renown was rife--
8. 35All quelled!--Dark Spirit! what must be
9. 36The madness of thy memory!

1. 37The Desolator desolate!
2. 38The Victor overthrown!
3. 39The Arbiter of others' fate
4. 40A Suppliant for his own!
5. 41Is it some yet imperial hope
6. 42That with such change can calmly cope?
7. 43Or dread of death alone?
8. 44To die a Prince--or live a slave--
9. 45Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

1. 46He who of old would rend the oak,
2. 47Dreamed not of the rebound;
3. 48Chained by the trunk he vainly broke--
4. 49Alone--how looked he round?
5. 50Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
6. 51An equal deed hast done at length.
7. 52And darker fate hast found:
8. 53He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
9. 54But thou must eat thy heart away!

1. 55The Roman, when his burning heart
2. 56Was slaked with blood of Rome,
3. 57Threw down the dagger--dared depart,
4. 58In savage grandeur, home.--
5. 59He dared depart in utter scorn
6. 60Of men that such a yoke had borne,
7. 61Yet left him such a doom!
8. 62His only glory was that hour
9. 63Of self-upheld abandoned power.

1. 64The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
2. 65Had lost its quickening spell,
3. 66Cast crowns for rosaries away,
4. 67An empire for a cell;
5. 68A strict accountant of his beads,
6. 69A subtle disputant on creeds,
7. 70His dotage trifled well:
8. 71Yet better had he neither known
9. 72A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

1. 73But thou--from thy reluctant hand
2. 74The thunderbolt is wrung--
3. 75Too late thou leav'st the high command
4. 76To which thy weakness clung;
5. 77All Evil Spirit as thou art,
6. 78It is enough to grieve the heart
7. 79To see thine own unstrung;
8. 80To think that God's fair world hath been
9. 81The footstool of a thing so mean;

1. 82And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
2. 83Who thus can hoard his own!
3. 84And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
4. 85And thanked him for a throne!
5. 86Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
6. 87When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
7. 88In humblest guise have shown.
8. 89Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
9. 90A brighter name to lure mankind!

1. 91Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
2. 92Nor written thus in vain--
3. 93Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
4. 94Or deepen every stain:
5. 95If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
6. 96Some new Napoleon might arise,
7. 97To shame the world again--
8. 98But who would soar the solar height,
9. 99To set in such a starless night?

1. 100Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
2. 101Is vile as vulgar clay;
3. 102Thy scales, Mortality! are just
4. 103To all that pass away:
5. 104But yet methought the living great
6. 105Some higher sparks should animate,
7. 106To dazzle and dismay:
8. 107Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
9. 108Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

1. 109And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
2. 110Thy still imperial bride;
3. 111How bears her breast the torturing hour?
4. 112Still clings she to thy side?
5. 113Must she too bend, must she too share
6. 114Thy late repentance, long despair,
7. 115Thou throneless Homicide?
8. 116If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,--
9. 117'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!

1. 118Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
2. 119And gaze upon the sea;
3. 120That element may meet thy smile--
4. 121It ne'er was ruled by thee!
5. 122Or trace with thine all idle hand
6. 123In loitering mood upon the sand
7. 124That Earth is now as free!
8. 125That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
9. 126Transferred his by-word to thy brow.

1. 127Thou Timour! in his captive's cage
2. 128What thoughts will there be thine,
3. 129While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
4. 130But one--"The world was mine!"
5. 131Unless, like he of Babylon,
6. 132All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
7. 133Life will not long confine
8. 134That spirit poured so widely forth--
9. 135So long obeyed--so little worth!

1. 136Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
2. 137Wilt thou withstand the shock?
3. 138And share with him, the unforgiven,
4. 139His vulture and his rock!
5. 140Foredoomed by God--by man accurst,
6. 141And that last act, though not thy worst,
7. 142The very Fiend's arch mock;
8. 143He in his fall preserved his pride,
9. 144And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

1. 145There was a day--there was an hour,
2. 146While earth was Gaul's--Gaul thine--
3. 147When that immeasurable power
4. 148Unsated to resign
5. 149Had been an act of purer fame
6. 150Than gathers round Marengo's name
7. 151And gilded thy decline,
8. 152Through the long twilight of all time,
9. 153Despite some passing clouds of crime.

1. 154But thou forsooth must be a King
2. 155And don the purple vest,
3. 156As if that foolish robe could wring
4. 157Remembrance from thy breast.
5. 158Where is that faded garment? where
6. 159The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
7. 160The star, the string, the crest?
8. 161Vain froward child of Empire! say,
9. 162Are all thy playthings snatched away?

1. 163Where may the wearied eye repose
2. 164When gazing on the Great;
3. 165Where neither guilty glory glows,
4. 166Nor despicable state?
5. 167Yes--One--the first--the last--the best--
6. 168The Cincinnatus of the West,
7. 169Whom Envy dared not hate,
8. 170Bequeathed the name of Washington,
9. 171To make man blush there was but one!