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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://archive.org/details/odetonapoleonbon01byro 
 
ODE, $c. 
 
 &ntn& at £t.irioiiet$r fan. 
 
ODE 
 
 TO 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 BY LORD BYRON. 
 
 Expende Annibalem : — quot libras in duce summo 
 
 Iavenies ? — 
 
 Juvenal, Sat. X. 
 
 TENTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 printed for john murray, albemarle-street., 
 
 by w. bulmer and co. cleveland-row, 
 st. james's. 
 
 1815. 
 
: 
 
yt?8 
 
 " The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the 
 " Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of 
 " Gaul j his moral virtues, and military talents, were 
 <( loudly celebrated ; and those who derived any pri- 
 ** vate benefit from his government, announced in 
 
 ** prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity. 
 
 ****** 
 * * * * * * 
 
 " By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life 
 
 " a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an 
 
 " Emperor and an Exile, till — — — 
 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. 6, p. 220. 
 
 SS3^ 
 
ODE 
 
 TO 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
ODE. 
 
 i. 
 
 1 is 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, 
 Who strew'd our Earth with hostile bones, 
 
 And can he thus survive ? 
 Since he, miscalTd the Morning Star, 
 Nor man nor fiend hath falTn so far. 
 
[10] 
 
 . II. 
 
 Ill-minded mart ! why scourge thy kind 
 
 Who bowM 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 
 
 To those that worshipp 1 d thee ; 
 Nor till thy fall could mortals guess 
 Ambition's less than littleness ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Thanks for that lesson — it will teach 
 
 To after-warriors more 
 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 
 Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, 
 With fronts of brass, and feet of clay 
 
 • 
 
[11 ] 
 
 IV. 
 
 The triumph, and the vanity, 
 
 The rapture of the strife* — 
 The earthquake voice of Victory, 
 
 To thee the breath of life ; 
 The sword, the sceptre, and that sway 
 Which man seenVd made but to obey, 
 
 Wherewith renown was rife — 
 All quelTd ! — Dark Spirit! what must be 
 The madness of thy memory ! 
 
 V. 
 
 The Desolator desolate ! 
 
 The Victor overthrown ! 
 The Arbiter of others 1 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 — 
 Thy choice is most ignobly brave ! 
 
 * Certaminis gaudia, the expression of Attila in his harangue to 
 his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus. 
 
[12 J 
 
 VI. 
 
 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 
 
 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 f 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Roman,-f* when his burning heart 
 
 Was slaked with blood of Rome, 
 Threw down the dagger — dared depart, 
 
 In savage grandeur, home.— 
 He dared depart in utter scorn 
 Gf men that such a yoke had borne, 
 
 Yet left him such a doom ! 
 His only glory was that hour 
 Of self-upheld abandon'd power. 
 
 * MHo. i Scylla. 
 
[ 13] 
 VIII. 
 
 The Spaniard,* when the lust of sway 
 Had lost its quickening spell, 
 
 Cast crowns for rosaries away, 
 An empire for a cell ; 
 
 A strict accountant of his beads, 
 
 A s\ibtle disputant on creeds, 
 His dotage trifled well : 
 
 Yet better had he neither known 
 
 A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But thou — from thy reluctant hand 
 
 The thunderbolt is wrung — 
 Too late thou leav'st the high command 
 
 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 
 The footstool of a thing so mean ; 
 
 * Charles V. 
 
[ 14 1 
 
 X. 
 
 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 ! 
 Fair Freedom ! we may hold thee dear, 
 When thus thy mightiest foes their fear * 
 
 In humblest guise have shown. 
 Oh ! ne^r 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, 
 
 Or 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 ? 
 
[15] 
 
 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 \anished diadem ! 
 
[ 16] 
 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 
 Transferred his bye- word to thy brow. 
 
 XV. 
 
 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:" 
 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 obey'd — so little worth ! 
 
 * The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane. 
 
[ 17 ] 
 
 XVI. 
 
 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, 
 And that last act, though not thy worst, 
 
 The very Fiend's arch mock ;f 
 He in his fall preserv'd his pride, 
 And, if a mortal, had as proudly died ! 
 
 * Prometheus. 
 
 t " The fiend's arch mock. 
 
 " To lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste."— 
 
 Shaksptare. 
 
 London : Printed by W. Bulmer and CV 
 Cleveland-Row, St. James's. 
 
Lately were published, 
 New Editions in Octavo of the following Poems, 
 
 By the Right Hon. LORD BYRON. 
 
 1 Childe Harold, Ninth edition, 8vo. 12s. 
 
 2 The Giaour, Twelfth edition, 8vo. 5*. 6d. 
 
 3 The Bride of Abydos, Tenth edition, 8vo. 5*. 6d. 
 
 4 The Corsair, Seventh edition, 8vo. 5*. 6d. 
 
 5 Lara, a Tale, Fourth edition, 8vo. 5*. 6d. 
 
 On the 1st of February, 18 J 5, will be published, 
 
 1. The WORKS of the Right Hon. LORD BYRON, collected 
 and printed uniformly and handsomely, in 4 vols, small 
 8vo. 285. 
 
 2. TWELVE PLATES, ILLUSTRATIVE of the POEMS of 
 LORD BYRON, engraved by C. Heath and other eminent 
 Artists, from the original Designs of Stothard. Printed in 
 4to. 8vo. and small 8vo. 
 
 Price in 4to. Proofs on India Paper, £3 3 
 
 4to. Proofs - - - - 2 2 
 
 Svo. 110 
 
 Small 8vo. - - - - 18 O 
 
 ALSO 
 
 A Portrait of Lord Byron, to bind up with the Poems 
 Proofs 10s. 6d. Prints 5s. 6d. 
 
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