To see thine own unstrung;

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

X.

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarch's bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd 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!

XI.

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Ör deepen every stain :

If thou hadst died as honour 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?

XII.

Weigh'd 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 deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

XIII.

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 !1

XIV.

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
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.

XV.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage2
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage?
But one- "The world was mine!"
Unless, like he of Babylon,

All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine

That spirit pour'd so widely forth-
So long obey'd-so little worth!

XVI.

Or, like the thief of fire for heaven,3
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,'
The very Fiend's arch mock;
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

XVII.

There was a day-there was an hour, While there was Gaul's-Gaul thineWhen that immeasurable power

Unsated to resign

Had been an act of purer fame
Than gathers round Marengo's name
And gilded thy decline,

Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.

XVIII.

But thou forsooth must be a king,
And don the purple vest,
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star, the string, the crest?
Vain froward child of empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatch'd away ?

XIX.

Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;

Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?

Yes-one-the first-the last-the best-
The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate,

Bequeath'd the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one!

Notes to the Ode to Napoleon
Buonaparte.

1.

"Certaminis gaudia"-the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

2.

The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane.

Prometheus.

3.

4.

-" The very fiend's arch mockTo lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste."

-SHAKSPEARE

[He alludes to the unworthy amour in which Napoleon engaged on the evening of his arrival at Fontainebleau.]