CCXIII Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte
’Tis 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, 5
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fall’n so far.
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind 10
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, 15
To those that worshipped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition’s less than littleness!
Thanks for that lesson—it will teach
To after-warriors more 20
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 25
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, 30
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 35
The madness of thy memory!
The Desolator desolate!
The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others’ fate
A suppliant for his own! 40
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! 45
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, 50
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, when his burning heart 55
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, 60
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, 65
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: 70
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot’s shrine, nor despot’s throne.
But thou—from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung—
Too late thou leav’st the high command 75
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 80
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! 85
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! 90
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 honour dies, 95
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 100
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, 105
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, 110
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? 115
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— 120
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 125
Transferred his by-word 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!’ 130
Unless, like he 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! 135
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God—by man accurst, 140
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!
Lord Byron.