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’TIS done—but yesterday a King! | |
And arm’d with Kings to strive— | |
And now thou art a nameless thing: | |
So abject—yet alive! | |
Is this the man of thousand thrones, | 5 |
Who strew’d our earth with hostile bones, | |
And can he thus survive? | |
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star, | |
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. | |
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Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind | 10 |
Who bow’d so low the knee? | |
By gazing on thyself grown blind, | |
Thou taught’st the rest to see. | |
With might unquestion’d,—power to save,— | |
Thine only gift hath been the grave, | 15 |
To those that worshipp’d thee; | |
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess | |
Ambition’s less than littleness! | |
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Thanks for that lesson—it will teach | |
To after-warriors more | 20 |
Than high Philosophy can preach, | |
And vainly preach’d 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. | |
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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 seem’d made but to obey, | |
Wherewith renown was rife— | |
All quell’d—Dark spirit! what must be | 35 |
The madness of thy memory! | |
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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 |
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He who of old would rend the oak, | |
Dream’d not of the rebound: | |
Chain’d by the trunk he vainly broke— | |
Alone—how look’d 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! | |
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The Roman, 1 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 abandon’d power. | |
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The Spaniard, 2 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. | |
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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; | |
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And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, | |
Who thus can hoard his own! | |
And Monarchs bow’d the trembling limb, | |
And thank’d 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 |
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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? | |
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Weigh’d 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 deem’d Contempt could thus make mirth | |
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. | |
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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 vanish’d diadem! | |
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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 |
Transferr’d his by-word to thy brow. | |
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Thou Timour! in his captive’s cage 3 | |
What thoughts will there be thine, | |
While brooding in thy prison’d rage? | |
But one—‘The world was mine!’ | 130 |
Unless, like he of Babylon, | |
All sense is with thy sceptre gone, 4 | |
Life will not long confine | |
That spirit pour’d so widely forth— | |
So long obey’d—so little worth! | 135 |
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Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, | |
Wilt thou withstand the shock? | |
And share with him, the unforgiven, | |
His vulture and his rock! | |
Foredoom’d 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! | |
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There was a day—there was an hour, | 145 |
While earth was Gaul’s—Gaul thine— | |
When that immeasurable power | |
Unsated to resign, | |
Had been an act of purer fame | |
Than gathers round Marengo’s name, | 150 |
And gilded thy decline | |
Through the long twilight of all time, | |
Despite some passing clouds of crime. | |
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But thou forsooth must be a king, | |
And don the purple vest, | 155 |
As if that foolish robe could wring | |
Rememberance from thy breast. | |
Where is that faded garment? where | |
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, | |
The star—the string—the crest? | 160 |
Vain froward child of empire! say, | |
Are all thy playthings snatched away? | |
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Where may the wearied eye repose | |
When gazing on the Great; | |
Where neither guilty glory glows, | 165 |
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, | 170 |
To make man blush there was but one! | |