POEMS. ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. "Tis done-but yesterday a King! And armed with Kings to strive — Is this the man of thousand thrones, Since he, miscalled the Morning Star, Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind, Who bowed so low the knee? By gazing on thyself grown blind, With might unquestioned, power to save, To those that worshipped thee; Nor till thy fall could mortals guess Ambition's less than littleness! Thanks for that lesson-it will teach Than high Philosophy can preach, 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 sword, the sceptre, and that sway Wherewith renown was rife All quelled! - Dark Spirit! what must be The madness of thy memory! 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- He who of old would rend the oak, Chained by the trunk he vainly broke Alone how looked he round? Thou, in the sternness of thy strength, The Roman, when his burning heart He dared depart in utter scorn His only glory was that hour The Spaniard, 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. But thou from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung |