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 BONAPARTE. 
 
 A POEM. 
 
 \ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON. 
 
 NX. 
 
 1848. 
 
Id 1^1 
 
 Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by 
 
 LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA '. 
 T. K. AND F. G. COLLINS, PRINTE: 
 
TO ALL 
 
 WHO HATE DESPOTIC POWER, IN ALL AND ANY OF ITS FORMS ; 
 
 TO ALL 
 
 WHO DREAD AMBITION, 
 WHOSE SOLE IMPULSE IS SELF; 
 
 TO ALL 
 
 WHO DETEST WAR AS A SOURCE OF NATIONAL GLORY, 
 
 THIS WORK 
 
 IS INSCRIBED. 
 
BONAPAETE. 
 
 Triumphant victor in a hundred fights, 
 Yet recreant to all that's great or true ; 
 Stern trampler on the best of human rights, 
 That crushed were, and borne to the earth by you. 
 But the bad praise thee; of the good, how few; 
 Wrong tracked thy path, the agony of woe ; 
 The phantoms of those thy ambition slew 
 Were in thy visions, on thy path, to show 
 Their scorn, as thy greatness waned to its overthrow. 
 
 To thee, despot and tyrant of the age. 
 How little men now owe. 'Tis o'er. The wars 
 Thy genius with Freedom strove to wage, 
 Have on her high form hardly left their scars ; 
 2 
 
14 BONAPARTE. 
 
 As the storm that sweeps across th' air, and jars 
 The Heavens, — or as the wind upon the sea, — 
 Or as the murky cloud that shrouds the stars, 
 Thy grandeur seems. Man's struggles to be free. 
 Have snapped the sword that gave and graced thy majesty. 
 
 'Tis past — the glory, the grandeur, the strife ; 
 Wrecks of greatness are all that's left of thee ; 
 The tumult of an agitated life, 
 The heights of power, where thou strove to be, 
 Passions that grew to empire, victory 
 That held men and nations as by a spell, 
 Have sunk away, like a receding sea, 
 To where Time and its empty echoes dwell, 
 And left of dead ambition, wars and crimes to tell. 
 
 As, when near its nest, the bird folds its wings, 
 
 Sinking among the foliage of the tree, 
 
 And the pathos of its love, cheering sings, 
 
 Nature's beautiful, untaught minstrelsy, 
 
 While its baffled foe is made far to flee — 
 
 So Earth clapped its hands, and looked forth in pride, 
 
 Freed from thy desolating tyranny ; 
 
BONAPARTE. 16 
 
 And sweet Peace, whose claims had long been denied, 
 Now came forth in joy, with meek Mercy by its side. 
 
 When first rose thy star o'er the stormy steep, 
 Where men's passions raged a fearful warfare, 
 It seemed a watch-fire thrown along the deep, 
 The cheering sentinel of men's despair ; 
 Through Revolutions' fiercest tempest glare, 
 Bringing hope, for thy fast rising fame 
 Made all another hue and aspect wear, 
 And in the gath'ring glories of thy name. 
 Freedom seemed to stir her late lifeless form again : 
 
 But soon to sink away, though in its fall 
 Grow mightier, for minds had gathered force, 
 Even in this, frail hope's brief interval; 
 And fast followed thee in thy tyrant course. 
 Men's spirits were stirred to their very source. 
 And angry passions blazed with lightning gleam. 
 Subdued, yet exasperated, by remorse ; 
 For hearts were not now as once they had been, 
 When men's wrongs were a mockery and a dream. 
 
16 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Fortune changed thee, for in thy youth thou wert 
 Generous, and loved, or seemed to love, the free ; 
 Power quenched this, thy young desire, inert. 
 Became thy glowing love of liberty ; 
 Ambition to fame and conquest urged thee. 
 Ambition, whose iron-hearted strength at last 
 Made thee the scorned exile of history, 
 And thou, whose name had been Fame's loudest blast. 
 Lived to see thy greatness a shadow of the past. 
 
 Fit retribution ! souls so meanly cold, 
 Though Fortune's fondled champions, sons of Fate, 
 Yet are run in Nature's narrowest mould ; 
 And though man may accord them to be great, 
 By strange perversion. Time shall dissipate 
 The error, and e'en to its farthest verge, 
 With revenge, and the brandished brand of Hate 
 Pursue them, and opinion's burning surge, 
 To their base memories be an undying scourge. 
 
 Yet what can tyrants unto Freedom do ? 
 Their will, their pleasure, may scatter afar 
 The patriot's strength. Virtue's banded few. 
 Or Despotism, in its triumphal car. 
 
BONAPARTE. 17 
 
 Ride over the hearts of men, or fierce War, 
 Memorials of death and ruin write, 
 On the frame of nations; unhealed, the scar 
 Remains, to quicken Vengeance to its might. 
 And stir men's angry passions to their utmost height. 
 
 Justice is Heaven's testament to man ; 
 Oppression, blood-dyed Persecution, Wrong, 
 Fiends, whose phantom figures move in the van 
 Of Tyranny, and with scorpion thong. 
 Lash men's spirits, hold not their triumph long; 
 Minds strengthen as they suffer, and each deed 
 Of guilt has its retribution ; the throng 
 Of gentle martyred souls, in time of need 
 Embattled, plant, at last. Freedom's standard and its seed. 
 
 Then come the shock and storm of human ill, 
 For deadliest in their revenge are the 
 Unjustly wronged, and though deferred their will, 
 (Patience's, the strength of those who would be free,) 
 As from Heaven comes at last the high decree, 
 The burning mandate, the stern-spoke word, 
 Of nations bursting from their slavery. 
 
 2* 
 
18 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Tired of wrong, though Freedom can well afford 
 Its champions for the rack, scaffold, or the sword. 
 
 Their each agony to the world is joy. 
 Their blood is the incense of their glory, 
 Their sufferings, their title to destroy. 
 Their woes, their deaths, the proudest victory ; 
 And though of time enameled history. 
 Each page is moulded with the hard-wrung tear 
 Of human pain, and this no more shall be, 
 Yet men's rights out Death's carnival appear, 
 And Freedom follows the fallen patriot's bier. 
 
 Once borne to earth by man's tyrannic will, 
 They rise, at length, majestic o'er their woes; 
 Through the heart's pent agony comes the thrill 
 Of fierce revenge, appalling to their foes ; 
 Passion, from their rent heart a lava-flood flows, 
 Blood and death bearing on its heated stream, 
 And men's spirits, like earth's torn volcanoes, 
 Flash their fury forth, a withering gleam, 
 And Heaven's face is colored with havoc's bloody steam. 
 
BONAPARTE. 19 
 
 But against thee, proud Chieftain, were arrayed, 
 Not the strong columns of the free alone, 
 But tyrants and tyrants' hosts drew War's blade, 
 And to crush thee came sternly rushing on ; 
 O'er the Danube, the Vistula, the Don, 
 Moving masses marched ; all slaves, yet such slaves 
 As despots build their majesty upon. 
 Whose hearts stir not beyond their fathers' graves. 
 Whose thoughts are mute as the silent sea's unmoved waves. 
 
 From China's encircling wall, foemen came ; 
 Pathless Tartary sent a savage force ; 
 The ice-bound North poured down a martial train ; 
 A human torrent, bursting from its source. 
 Urged by revenge upon its bloody course. 
 Swept o'er France's sun-lit plains; then with thee. 
 How bitter the struggles of thy remorse. 
 When, from Helots of feudal slavery, 
 Were heard the march of triumph, and War's jubilee. 
 
 And those who but yesterday prostrate lay, 
 Now bore thy legions back ; for thou the chord 
 Hadst touched that calls a nation's strength in play ; 
 Quicker than at Command's imperious word 
 
^0 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Leaps and flashes forth th' impatient sword ; 
 And stern resolve triple arms each brave breast, 
 When the invading stranger's footsteps heard ; 
 And peasants from their loved home's peaceful rest, 
 Come forth, Nature's noblest warriors, Freedom's best. 
 
 Greatest of tyrants ! by tyrants wast thou 
 Overthrown ; for these, the usurpers of Time, 
 No kingly interloper will allow, 
 Save when by some age-linked ancestral line, 
 And privileges too obscurely fine. 
 They hold their royal charter ! though then these 
 Crowned casuists admit their light to shine 
 On the sceptred neophyte, and feel at ease 
 With tyranny's young graduate and his degrees. 
 
 But thou wast Fortune's heir, and held thy claim 
 From Nature ; who made thy mind an empire, 
 And gave it the proudest title deeds of fame ; 
 Love of glory, its essence and its fire. 
 Urged thee with fierce impatience to aspire ; 
 But love of power, too often near allied. 
 Stained the majesty of thy high desire. 
 
BONAPARTE. 21 
 
 And drew thee from Virtue's hopes soon aside ; 
 For love of virtue is ambition purified. 
 
 These, thy brother kings, despised thee; thy rule 
 And greatness were satires on the time-worn 
 Dignities of the Imperial school ; 
 Thy quick ambition brought all Europe's scorn 
 To point its finger at their heavy form, 
 And stir them from Despotism's dozing sway 
 To life and action, and bright thought's bright morn, 
 For mind's mist now rolled rapidly away. 
 And a soul-stirring dawn rose o'er the late lifeless day : 
 
 A dawn tinged with highest hope's sunlit hues ; 
 Hope that traversed earth a time-wearied pilgrim. 
 Empire on empire daring to refuse 
 Her proffered boon, and long with downcast mien, 
 Strove with the bitterness of her chagrin, 
 Now, flushed with joy, a rapture o'er her face, 
 With feelings proud and noble began to beam, 
 Her withered features melted into grace. 
 As she looked on the prospects of the human race. 
 
22 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Like a penitent, she had lived on the past, 
 On the ruins of ages long gone by, 
 Among minds whose deathless deeds shall outlast 
 The dying records of all history; 
 Who, while thought has a firmament on high, 
 Roll, ever flashing, beautiful and strong; 
 Their monuments build with eternity ; 
 The living lights of mind's majestic throng, 
 High Philosophy's life, the dignity of song. 
 
 With these she dwelt, a hermit in her cell. 
 Sadly viewing the storming world below ; 
 Wise in her griefs, she knew, alas ! full well. 
 That thought in men's minds does not quickly grow. 
 Nor to immature ripeness bloom and blow ; 
 But generations, ages, wither and decay. 
 Ere break rooted customs, cold, dead, fallow; 
 A host of great minds must into one ray 
 Condense their power, ere the swathed bondage's burnt and 
 burst away. 
 
 There where Nature has her barriers reared 
 Against tyrants, on the free mountain's side. 
 
BONAPARTE. 23 
 
 To all who o'er men ever domineered, 
 A wall impregnable, the freeman's pride. 
 With his affections, too, knit and allied. 
 As a part of his soul's best love, on their 
 Heights, whose wild majesty is magnified. 
 Seeming Freedom's columns, built deep in air. 
 And Freedom's strength put on — and Freedom's beauty wear; 
 
 On the far heights of mountain realms unseen, 
 Where the ruins of w^orlds have left their scars, 
 Whence flows the rill that turns the mighty stream, 
 And the fierce elements wage their wild wars, 
 Disturbing, like civil factions, with jars 
 Unceasing, the bosom of their native air. 
 And where the tempest rolls its thunder-cars 
 Along Heaven's verge, Hope, Freedom, there 
 Met, and held their councils in silence and despair. 
 
 The light spray from the torrent's caverned bed. 
 Rose far to Heaven, there, its varied hues, 
 An arch of joy and peace gently blended, 
 While Beauty, with all her tints, deep imbues 
 The bright watery crescent's sun-clad dews, 
 
24 BONAPARTE. 
 
 And studs it with every dazzling gem, 
 Like some form of loveliness fancy woos, 
 Seems this, the water's floating diadem, 
 A vision which, when gone, we ne'er can view again. 
 
 Beneath this. Nature's pictured canopy. 
 These prophet-priests of mercy and of love. 
 In nations anticipated revelry. 
 Broke forth in joy, the misty shroud above. 
 Whose web-like form, with threads of light seemed wove, 
 Gave way, and Heaven's broad arch came in view; 
 On its bosom mighty elements move, 
 The past's honored forms, the immortal few, 
 Those who on right build Freedom, base it on the true. 
 
 Just spirits, the host of Earth's greatest names, 
 Seemed to be holding there a carnival. 
 All who had proud Tyranny and its aims 
 Resisted, and made their bosoms the wall 
 Of men's sufferings, in spiritual 
 Majesty were reflected ; the lofty 
 Concave gave back the deep resounding call 
 Of happy voices, and from far on high 
 Echoed among the azure columns of the sky. 
 
BONAPARTE. ^ 
 
 These looked lo thee, Freedom's young aspirant, 
 And from among the skies, rolling echoes 
 Swelling came, the solemn sounding choral chaunt; 
 Voices of the far dead, whose spirit throws 
 A mild and kindly hue o'er human woes, 
 Whose hearts Love's inextinguishable fire 
 Still holds, and when with life's angry furrows, 
 Deep run o'er, actions and noble thoughts still inspire, 
 For they are man's hope, aim and gage of high desire. 
 
 Clustered along Time's far connected chain. 
 Live these few ; whose worth, whose names, whose glory. 
 Amid the wreck, and ebbs and flows of fame. 
 With unshorn splendor rise high and proudly ; 
 The feebler world's moral sanctuary. 
 Near which, men in multitudes press to pay 
 The heart's lone and silent homage, and fly 
 Earth's meaner triumphs, that full quick decay, 
 And leave, in solid strength, those that ne'er pass away. 
 
 All looked to thee ; the virtuous, the great, 
 All, whose hopes yet outlived doubt and despair, 
 Whose high hearts Nature still preserved elate, 
 3 
 
26 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Through lifeless Despondency's lurid glare ; 
 All who felt that man was not meant to wear 
 The chains Ignorance doth around him fling, 
 Or forever the heavy burden bear 
 Of a brother's wrong, or be the toil-worn thing 
 Whose crushed spirit lies ever dumb, dull and drooping. 
 
 All looked to thee ; the free with hope and pride. 
 The peasant with the imploring mien of prayer. 
 The prince with fear ; all gathered to thy side 
 AVho wished in Freedom's festival to share; 
 While Dread and Envy, awakened in their lair. 
 Whet their fangs, and Tyranny's dull, cold ear, 
 At last the consciousness caught of what men dare, 
 When desperation has o'er-mastered fear. 
 And right, holding the torch of vengeance, doth appear. 
 
 All looked to thee, the mighty and the lone, 
 And curse and blessing tracked thy young career. 
 Where'er thy eagles, in the van dazzling shone. 
 Men's spirits stirred — the poor man's joyful tear. 
 The proud man's darkened eye of rage and fear. 
 Followed thee. Europe's millions, on the knee, 
 
BONAPARTE. 27 
 
 Sang Paeans on thy path, and far and near 
 Came the acclamations of victory, 
 Rose the tocsin and trumpet call of Liberty. 
 
 How doomed ! The fever fires of passion came, 
 Bursting through thy bosom ; thy youpg heart fell 
 From Freedom's advocate, and the Hero's name, 
 To Power's vulgar lust ; Ambition's spell 
 Withered thy loftier virtues, the knell 
 Which had been heard through Europe's broadest plains, 
 Sunk to War's harsh sound and crash of battle. 
 Though as Earth drank man's life-blood as it drains, 
 Happy it flowed not from falling patriots' veins. 
 
 What was thy ambition ? to make men free? 
 To give life to things drooping in decay ? 
 Break with the crash of thy artillery 
 The chain of strong opinions, the array 
 Of lifeless forms, mouldering fast away ? 
 Shake from their frames Time-withered dignities ? 
 Or the Past's falling ruins fresh inlay 
 With vigor, and open the dying eyes, 
 And rouse the dusty figures of dead centuries ? 
 
28 BONAPARTE. 
 
 What thy wish ? Or was ambition aimless. 
 And self the only tutor of thy heart? 
 Nations, like injured children, came to bless 
 Thee, and all their bleeding sorrows impart 
 To him, who seemed Heaven's avenging dart. 
 With arms of steel to hold ; but thy fierce mind, 
 To pour the balm of hope, or heal the smart 
 Of long-inflicted wrong, in scorn declined. 
 To all, save the blaze of its own thoughts, proudly blind. 
 
 The gentleness of thy nature, whatever 
 It might have been, was passion perverted ; 
 The better part of greatness was not there. 
 Love for thy kind ; that among embattled 
 Hosts, or near Misery *s humblest death-bed. 
 Still cherishes our kindred nature^s cares ; 
 Though thy heart, life's sterner elements fed. 
 Yet life's linked brotherhood it strongly wears. 
 And its lot, its miseries, its ruin fully shares. 
 
 And yet, there is power in the ocean, 
 Though it be ruffled by ev*ry gentlest breeze ; 
 True greatness deeper feels each emotion, 
 
BONAPARTE. 29 
 
 Measuring their force to their last degrees ; 
 The widest sphere of all our sympathies 
 Is its portion; for when concentrated 
 Into one passion, it is but disease, 
 Though the noblest ; as too far elated, 
 Man is of self the victim, to ruin fated. 
 
 A world was thine, a bright and glorious world, 
 Defaced alone by thee and thy fierce will ; 
 On the wild tempest blast of war, unfurled, 
 Thy banners floated ; from every hill, 
 Rolled wide, the shock and storm of human ill; 
 The fair scene grew dreary; crouching like hounds 
 Empires lay; in the shudder and the thrill 
 Of fear, nations stood panting with their wounds, 
 For thy power past and mastered all past power's bounds. 
 
 Yet thou wert not content; dominion's lust 
 Fevered thee to the core; at last, thy tread. 
 O'er ruined fields, and dead men's crumbling dust, 
 Measured the earth; it availed not, power fed 
 Passion, and to the banquet richly spread, 
 
 3* 
 
30 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Thy soul's harpy spirits, like vultures came, 
 Till Virtue's springs at their source were wasted. 
 And mind on self turned its fiercely fed flame. 
 The victim of success, and martyr to thy brain. 
 
 That like a seething caldron, boiled o'erwrought, 
 Fiercely burning fancies feeding the fire, 
 While the whirl and eddy of teeming thought, 
 Bore thee o'er the summit of all desire, 
 And thou, by Fortune spoilt, began to aspire 
 Beyond the range and sphere assigned to man ; 
 Then destruction came. Higher, yet higher 
 7^0 rise, thou strove, but ruin, in the van. 
 Met thee, checked and crushed Ambition's gigantic span. 
 
 As when from some cataract's crashing height, 
 
 The far-falling waters melt into spray, 
 
 And, with a thousand mingling hues of light, 
 
 Multiply the beauty of every ray. 
 
 While, in miniature mockery of day. 
 
 Suns in myriads, through the wreathing foam. 
 
 Spread their tinted splendor, and glancing play, 
 
BONAPARTE. 31 
 
 Making this a palace, whose watery dome, 
 Liive colored glass, lights some majestic spirit's home : 
 
 So was it with thee; Fortune's mist shrouded 
 Thy mind, yet on thy brow in glory hung, 
 But life's tempestuous struggles clouded 
 The lustre that high fame around thee flung. 
 And turbid made the depths from whence it sprung ; 
 The hues of splendor that clustered near thee 
 In thy greatness, melted fast from among 
 The nations, whose deep-set hostility 
 Made thee, at last, a sunken wreck on Earth's storm-stilled 
 sea. 
 
 War was thy pastime, thy truest pleasure. 
 Thy glory's gage, its height and highest aim, 
 All life's ends, to thee, it seemed to measure ; 
 To trample on the dead, to crush the slain, 
 Mark by death thy march along the battle plain. 
 While victor's cries, and shrieks of death, arose 
 From battling hosts, partook to thee of fame, 
 In self's intensest love, the mass of woes 
 Heaped by thee, was lost in the struggle with thy foes. 
 
82 BONAPARTE. 
 
 To be a conqueror, was to thee above 
 All other forms of greatness ; th' higher fame 
 That belongs to Virtue, meek Peace and Love, 
 Was, to thy ambition's cravings, too tame ; 
 Earth was a battle field; thereon were lain 
 The spoils of Glory ; they needed discord. 
 War's crash and desolation to attain. 
 And nation's bleeding bodies, to afford 
 Thee renown and power, majesty that centres in the sword. 
 
 Yet for this, man honors thee, and thou art 
 Among those he calls immortal ; for we 
 Act the base hypocrite to our bad heart. 
 And like cowards recoil and basely flee 
 From those who multiply men's misery. 
 Such as thou are moral scourges, a curse 
 That swells the bounds of human agony, 
 And like he who tears the nipple of the nurse, 
 But teaches men their hands in brother's blood t' immerse. 
 
 It is in youth grows the loftier thought ; 
 
 Our feelings and our fancies then are free, 
 
 Nor the young soul by passion scored or wrought ; 
 
BONAPARTE. 33 
 
 But as a bird upon a stormy sea, 
 Delighting in its sea-born liberty, 
 Floats over life's surges ; and sinks or soars, 
 Upon each swell, reposing gracefully. 
 And at times lifting its feathery oars. 
 To fall where the sheltering waters its strength restores. 
 
 All is glad within us; the spirit's burst 
 Of pleasure, mantling through youth's burning veins, 
 To the young heart's centre, is soon dispersed. 
 Brightly lighting each power and its aims; 
 And thus the ardent soul its hopes attains, 
 Onward dashing in its fiery force. 
 The heat imparting that itself inflames. 
 Through life's hostile columns like a war-horse 
 Plunging, and o'er its bayonet points in its course. 
 
 And then, we of honor dream, and glory ; 
 
 Presumptuous are we in our powers. 
 
 Hoping on the blazoned page of story 
 
 To inscribe ourselves ; make Fame's hard-won bowers, 
 
 Perennial in their bloom, and ever ours ; 
 
 For the heart has not felt Earth's cares or fears, 
 
34 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Nor the spirit quelled been by bitter hours, 
 With which disappointment each triumph sears, 
 And leaves, for life's sole retinue, regrets and tears. 
 
 Thus was't with thee, w^hen Italy first heard 
 Thy battle cry, and thou, deep in her breast 
 Plunged War's talons, and o'er her dead form spurred 
 Thy war-horse, awaking from slavish rest, 
 The souls of fire their fathers once possest. 
 But now lay their ashes entombed among. 
 Till thou, deliverer of the opprest, 
 At their feet the past's broken wreaths sternly flung, 
 And showed whence their proud power and prouder glory 
 sprung. 
 
 Thy ambition then was eager, and danced 
 
 With a strong emotion in thy young blood; 
 
 Thy visions were not grasped, but yet they glanced 
 
 With the sheen of noon-day on the ocean flood, 
 
 When as the gay ship stems her course, the food 
 
 For thought grows livelier, and our minds take 
 
 The hue of the tide's splendor ; but thy mood 
 
BONAPARTE. 35 
 
 Grew darker, as success began to awake 
 New scenes of power, e'en possession could not slake. 
 
 From amid desolation, whose dark form, 
 Like a rock from out the sea, bares its head, 
 Thy young glory took its flight ; through the storm, 
 And crash of Empires, it fast onward fled, 
 Holding its eagle flight above the dead. 
 While war's bloody steam rose deep around thee. 
 And on thy brow its lurid halos spread ; 
 The crash of battle, and shouts of victory. 
 Following fast thy fortunes and thy destiny. 
 
 Near and around thee, dying Empires lay ; 
 Vast states by time and tyranny outworn. 
 In their own dust dissolving to decay; 
 And great, though desolate, and lone and lorn ; 
 Not time stricken only ; each prostrate form, 
 Speaks and points, whence this wide destruction rose; 
 Tells of wild ambition's convulsive storm. 
 Making nations and their realms, but shadows, 
 A record and a ruin, drear and doubtful at their close. 
 
36 BONAPARTE. 
 
 As o'er the waste of waters, flew the dove, 
 Disconsolate amid desolation ! 
 Seeking through nature's wreck, a voice of love, 
 A word, an echo, a remembered tone 
 Of sympathy, and 'mid all finding none, 
 Man's spirit looked abroad, but all was drear. 
 In solitude, homeless, friendless, alone, 
 It stood, and in despair, sharper far than fear. 
 No echo caught, affection's voice, compassion's tear. 
 
 E'en the spirit of man, that dwelt with these. 
 Carcases of Empires ! like one in pain. 
 Who looks to heaven, and sighs for a release. 
 Cowed and subdued, and conscious of its shame. 
 Overborne by power, that strove to tame. 
 All life and sense of life, it died away ; 
 The tribunal that might have heard its claim. 
 Was closed, and every judicial array. 
 Followed, but where WTong and oppression marked the way. 
 
 As when, upon some fierce contended plain. 
 
 After the hot contest is o'er; the cries 
 
 Of the wounded, dying with thirst and pain. 
 
BONAPARTE. 37 
 
 From amid the carnage, despairing rise, 
 And in the death grapple of their agonies, 
 Words from out their parched throats, come wild and shrill, 
 Moaning imprecations, mad blasphemies, 
 The proud heart's courage, despair and its thrill. 
 That pain, with which life's dark departure, holds us still. 
 
 From out the slaughter ever and again, 
 Some half crushed victim, writhing to and fro, 
 Lifts himself o'er the dying and the slain ; 
 And with the gasp, and agonizing throe 
 Of death, shrieks for vengeance upon the foe ; 
 Then falls back, venting at once curse and prayer. 
 And mingles with his brother dead below ; 
 Of such scenes are victories when laid bare, 
 Of such foliage, the laurels, the ambitious wear. 
 
 And like these battle-fields, where ghastly war 
 Unmasks itself, are these fated Empires. 
 Along their fields, power rolls its crushing car, 
 Unchecked; and with fury that never tires. 
 On all life, on all feeling, which aspires, 
 Sets its heel ; breaking the heart's hopes ; while thought, 
 4 
 
88 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Like a stormy summer's sun, its clouded fires, 
 Broods o'er, till suffering into passion wrought, 
 Returns, in fury, the injury it was taught. 
 
 And the hour comes ; for like undying Hate, 
 Men's injuries smoulder, and long and deep. 
 They burn, while they some fitting time await; 
 Yet fierce in convulsion, at length they leap, 
 Into death's arena, and fully reap 
 The mad vengeance they have so long forborne ; 
 With these foster fiends of ruin, they keep 
 No terms, but as trees by whirlwinds uptorn, 
 Are rent and scattered by these Titans of the storm. 
 
 So man, man, once the humiliated, 
 Sprung swift from earth, and dashed his chains abroad; 
 The world, that appeared to him a grated 
 Wall, around which, with lion pace, he strode. 
 Smothering of pain and sorrow, the life load. 
 Now seems a light elastic turf, where flowers 
 Spring beneath the feet, and each path and road 
 Lead where peace and freedom build their bowers, 
 And all looks fresh to his new awakened powers. 
 
BONAPARTE. 39 
 
 Thus was it, when thou appeared'st on the scene ; 
 France had had her fill of desolation ; 
 From the butcheries of the Guillotine 
 She was free, and kingly degradation ; 
 With all the proud and happy elation, 
 That comes from spirits by their own strength relieved, 
 She rejoiced; with buoyant inspiration, 
 Looked onward, and joyous at heart conceived 
 The great end, her soul's high hope and aim now achieved. 
 
 Had she not given her blood ? was it not drained 
 From her, till it seemed her soil's nutriment ? 
 Her soul's quest, was it not this way attained ? 
 Through a bloody struggle, her passions vent, 
 To which the cause, dark and sombre justice leant? 
 Had she not sacrificed all ? new worded 
 The catalogue of crime ? Death's firmament, 
 Filled with fierce forms, ne'er before afforded. 
 Nor in the annals of man's ferocity recorded. 
 
 And all this, beneath Freedom's garb and guise, 
 Was done; as if som.e Pagan Deity, 
 Wallowing in his loathsome mysteries, 
 
40 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Had usurped the fair form of Liberty ; 
 While men, mad in their drunken revelry, 
 Their homage gave ; filling the intervals 
 Of joy and hope, and their glad ecstacy, 
 With crime, and among their fallen manacles. 
 Acting the part of crime's blood-seeking Bacchanals. 
 
 To and fro, wild opinions current heaved. 
 And all the anarchy of mind's unfixed will ; 
 Broken hearts, and breaking, yet to be bereaved, 
 Stood watching their hearts, and fortunes' wreck ; the thrill 
 Of more than death, its suspense, did instil 
 Double agony ; while murder that slacks 
 Not, but insatiate, demands of blood its fill. 
 Through mad massacre, waded on, and tracks 
 Its crimson path, with pulsations of the dripping axe. 
 
 Minds of men, bursting with volcanic fire, 
 The Past's dull death shroud strove to tear away. 
 And o'er its dark form, Revenge his bold lyre 
 Crashed in fury ; she awoke in dismay, 
 And broke the rotting cerements of decay. 
 While far and near, the forms and images, 
 
BONAPARTE. 41 
 
 She loved, crowns, chains, sceptres, in disorder lay, 
 Evidences of the war man wages. 
 With Time's repulsive records, cold History's pages. 
 
 Did not each heart on thee look with pity ? 
 Thou noble relic ! of all once was great, 
 Thou siren land, fair but wronged Italy; 
 Whose deep furrowed form, like age, desolate, 
 With its losses, submissive seems ; whose fate, 
 Has dying Beauty's sweet repose, that calm, 
 Which speaks the passing spirit's languid state, 
 As death presses the eyelids with its palm, 
 And all that's mortal, seems with sanctity t' embalm. 
 
 A kind of solemn music breathes through thee ; 
 Time that leaves on all, its chilly impress, 
 Carving the Epitaph of mortality. 
 Has made thee more beautiful $ not the less. 
 That thou seemest the victim of rude distress. 
 Appealing to all hearts ; for who, that feels. 
 Can look on thee, wearing the mourning dress. 
 Of years, and while on the cheek, burning steals. 
 
 Sorrow's tear, does not admit thy sad grief's appeals. 
 
 4« 
 
44 BONAPARTE. 
 
 From tliy sky, like meteors dropping to earth, 
 Come shapes of Intellectual Beauty; 
 Minds, like pendent planets at nature's birth, 
 Through the wide chaos, swinging far and free, 
 Have caught thy orbit ; and as from a sea, 
 Thought comes rolling in with a tideless wave, 
 Forced and foaming with strength impelled by thee ; 
 And thy high annals, mind seems still to pave. 
 With glowing glories, as Time lowers thee to the grave. 
 
 On thee she looked, and at thy victor course, 
 And hailed thee, as the avenger ; for thy sword, 
 Seemed men's wrongs, unravelling at their source ; 
 And at Freedom's sternly impressive word, 
 Bursting Time's and oppression's knotted cord ; 
 All, hailed thee ! e'en the spirits of the dead. 
 As towards Italy thy legions poured. 
 Bearing back her grandeur, while glory lead 
 Thy banners, and moved with thy conquering column's tread. 
 
 Along thy bayonet points with lightning play, 
 Hope seemed to flash ; and as afar it flew. 
 
BONAPARTE. 49 
 
 Strengthened men's hearts, while its thought brightening 
 
 ray, 
 The life blood of each spirit did with joy imbue ; 
 Till the dawn to a gorgeous day grandly grew ; 
 E'en there, where men's souls, like a shrouded storm, 
 Were curtained in darkness, there, did renew, 
 The early memory of her nobler morn. 
 And rose once more in might, the Past's majestic form. 
 
 O'er the battlements of far years, wliose height, 
 Like mountains robed in mist, was lost among 
 The dreary solitude of Time's pathless night. 
 Rose this. Thought's splendid sheen, and as it flung 
 Its golden shadows forth, from the midst sprung 
 The spirits of many a vanished age, 
 Bringing the power that still around them clung, 
 The Poet's fire, the Patriot, the Sage, 
 Striving once more, t' illustrate Italia's burning page. 
 
 A thousand hearts, there met thine, all panting 
 
 For revenge on the unpitied wrongs of years ; 
 
 For thou, their fond hearts' fond hopes seemed granting; 
 
 Though like orphans, around their parents' biers, 
 
44 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Dropping o'er the dead, the heart's grief wrung tears, 
 They rose before thee ; yet the smothered fire, 
 That now but in unmanly aims appears, 
 Blazed at thy approach, and did fast inspire, 
 Each breast with emulation of a Roman sire. 
 
 The mailed Phantoms of the Past, those great names. 
 Whose deeds are the pride of human story. 
 Whose lineage transmits more than marble Fanes, 
 And holds the lustre of enduring glory, 
 Like gems strung on the page of history ; 
 These to every high Italian soul. 
 The full assurance sent, ihey should be free. 
 And among these, they did thy name enroll, 
 E'en among the greatest on Freedom's martial scroll. 
 
 And Thou drank'st inspiration from that land; 
 Lodi and Areola bespeak thy praise. 
 Louder far, than when followed by thy band. 
 Of venal heroes, in thy Power's best days; 
 Though greatness made then its greatest displays ; 
 But thou hadst lost the Patriot's truth and aim, 
 
BONAPARTE. 45 
 
 The beauty that hung among thy young bays, 
 The halo genius threw around thy name ; 
 Thy majesty was then the splendor of thy shame. 
 
 Thou wert ne'er so great again, after time 
 And passion wrought thee into vulgar clay; 
 Nor was the wreath, glory did then entwine 
 Upon thy brow, e'er fresher or more gay, 
 Or brighter with a more intellectual ray. 
 When thou hadst gained of victor and of king. 
 The royal port, and imposing array; 
 Thy life was more beautiful, when gushing 
 From its source, it rushed streaming, sparkling from its 
 spring. 
 
 The dangerous intercourse of power. 
 Thy nature's secret, full revealed to thee ; 
 No longer the gay and happy dower. 
 Of pure spirits, w^as to be thine ; destiny, 
 Whate'er it might grant, where'er lead thee. 
 Like a star hung in clouds, at one time clear. 
 Then robed in heaven's stormy drapery 
 
46 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Did appear, and thy ambition's short career, 
 The storm's magnificence did assume and its fear. 
 
 Yet as thou trodd'st o'er ruins and the dead. 
 Thy ambition kindled; from time's far height, 
 The crescent form of Glory its lustre shed ; 
 From among graves, the lone sepulchral night 
 Of ages, thy love of fame took its flight; 
 Among the ashes of the brave and the true. 
 The free and the strong burst thy spirit's light, 
 Where repose the great, thy bold eagles flew. 
 Beside their dust, fought thy victor legions, thy bugles blew. 
 
 Sylla, Caesar, thou felt'st to be thy Peers, 
 The mock heroes, of the republic's days. 
 Who like thee fulfilled every freeman's fears, 
 And in their crowns, wore a traitor's, rebel's, bays ; 
 Yet around their name, glory brightly plays ; 
 The destroyer outlives the destroyed, and men's woes 
 Forgot are in the greatness, which betrays ; 
 But for each tear that's wrung from misery, flows 
 Vengeance, Heaven's sharp justice, and its lightning blows. 
 
BONAPARTE. 47 
 
 Thou Brutus' dagger, and the Tarquiu's death, 
 All forgot, and those fearful deeds %hose fame 
 Mingles ignominy with the laurel wreath 
 Of many a victor ; it is the world's shame, 
 To honor any but the Patriot's name. 
 Or his, whose worth is immortal, and whose 
 Virtue is his Glory, and stale or tame 
 Ne'er, in the best of human bosoms grows. 
 But outlives passion, outlasts envy's alpine snows. 
 
 This noble land, it was hoped, thou wouldst redeem, 
 And with patriots, heroes, write thy name ; 
 Stir them from their long, dull and slavish dream. 
 To the inherited glories of their fame ; 
 Recall their long lapsed energies again ; 
 Renew those fires, time cannot all put out; 
 Light of thought and feeling the electric flame ; 
 Honor, pride, that brave men's souls cling about. 
 Rousing freemen's courage, quenching the coward's doubt. 
 
 This was thought thy mission, and around thee 
 Lay enough to keep thee to that career; 
 Names that illustrate human destiny. 
 
48 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Deeds that brighter, yet brighter, e'en appear; 
 All, examples, how thou thy bark shouldst steer; 
 Ruins where ambition solemn lessons read; 
 All spoke to power's cold, insensate ear; 
 E'en the earth, o'er which thy marching columns tread, 
 Conveyed to thee, the warning murmurs of the dead. 
 
 The Patriot's words. Poet's lofty song, 
 The Forum's fire, the majestic Senate, » 
 
 Of genius and of greatness the throng. 
 That cluster about old Rome's name and state. 
 Were before thee; all telling of the fate. 
 That marshals nations to a wide decay ; 
 Did not these thy ambition elevate ? 
 Then let imagination turn away. 
 To where the dying Caesar's bleeding body lay. 
 
 There, in fancy turn, to that bloody corse ; 
 
 Image of thyself and bad ambition. 
 
 As great, or greater than thou and no worse ; 
 
 Whose heart sunk from Freedom's aspiration, 
 
 To the duller dignities of a throne ; 
 
 Here was imaged thy end, the sea-struck rock. 
 
BONAPARTE. 49 
 
 A Tyrant's moral assassination, 
 Whose spirit could not soar above the shock, 
 But sunk as nations gazed at him, and scornful mock. 
 
 A bad model, and worthless end, for he, 
 With that careless cunning that deep conceals 
 Ambition's tiger humors, strove to be 
 Rome's lord ; and while the brain insensate, reels 
 With thoughts of glory, and hope gently steals 
 O'er the heart's views, Rome's last patriot rose. 
 And to him th' assassin's blow deadly deals ; 
 Madly struck, for from that dagger's edge flows 
 Freedom's ruin, that waned, then sunk and staggered to its 
 close. 
 
 So be it whene'er Liberty's mild spirit 
 By cruel mind's made merciless, as then, 
 The doom is fixed that blights and withers it. 
 For Freedom's gentle, and it is but when men 
 By passion mar it, and mercy, love, darken 
 To strife and fury, her majestic form 
 Turns hideous ; true freedom is the emblem 
 5 
 
50 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Of life's deepest beauty, and like the morn 
 That richly glows, portends the calm and not the storm. 
 
 Murder is the tyrant's justice, the free 
 Should not bare the blade, but in freedom's cause ; 
 Though tyrant, it is Heaven's will he should be, 
 Man may not mar, or change Fate's destined laws, 
 Nor with passion strive to master each clause 
 That suits him not; for what is he? an end 
 That fast to its own consummation draws ; 
 A spirit, it may be, but born to blend 
 AVith things that to it but momentary grandeur lend. 
 
 But thou, demagogue, hero, traitor, these three 
 Names of power, pride and contempt, were thine; 
 The passions, too, of each combined in thee, 
 And through time thou dost with false lustre shine : 
 To the free thou art not the sacred shrine 
 Where hopes and hearts cluster — one of those names 
 That with nations' affections intertwine — 
 Trumpet calls of the oppressed, a tyrant's aims, 
 Whose spirit, like a spell, frowns on, rebukes and tames. 
 
BONAPARTE. 51 
 
 Of these thou art not one, and shouldst not be, 
 Though men's anger is softened by thy death ; 
 Thou wert Freedom's sternest, subtlest enemy, 
 And like all who court the popular breath, 
 111 disposed towards the thing it asketh; 
 Thou couldst bear no equal, and when thou won 
 The farthest heights of fame, thou tore the wreath, 
 As in mockery of that thou hadst done ; 
 Thou sought a sceptre, to wear the majesty of Rome. 
 
 But thy guilt was thy country's, not all thine: 
 Sensuality, vice, and good fortune. 
 With years of luxury, lead fast to crime; 
 A shameless wreck, it long withstood its doom, 
 But fell at last, by its own weight, and soon 
 The despot's prey became; for tyranny 
 Riots on the graves of nations ; their tomb, 
 Is its play ground, and its spirit soars on high. 
 As they sink and wane, and downcast and dying lie. 
 
 As o'er the dead, the grass more greenly grows, 
 And fresh and fair seems the turf, while below 
 Lies the seed death's pale hand so coldly sows, 
 
52 BONAPARTE. 
 
 So nations, at their freedom's overthrow, 
 Present of majesty and Empire, the show; 
 But the spirit's passed; this seeming greatness 
 Is but dust; but into life, moulded so. 
 We scarce believe the form we view and press, 
 Is a thing of clay, corrupting fast, and lifeless. 
 
 Yet so was't with the mightiest Empire 
 The world e'er saw ; ages of power and fame, 
 That fell as legacies, from each bold sire. 
 Wasted fast to ruin, and more, to shame ; 
 Tyrant upon tyrant, like scourges came, 
 Trampling upon the high, the strong, the free, 
 The little of true worth, that did still remain, 
 On all that gave to Rome, her dignity, 
 That gives to man his high and noblest energy. 
 
 Cato! thou wast the last emblem Rome gave 
 Of what men might think a fable, hadst thou 
 Not, by thy sword's edge, and suicidal grave, 
 Made e'en Virtue's unbelievers allow 
 That in the agony of thy cold brow. 
 Freedom's love was a real and lofty thing; 
 
BONAPARTE, 53 
 
 Who of tyranny's casuists dare now 
 Mock the source, whence such noble actions spring, 
 Asperse the splendor, thy death doth about thee fling? 
 
 And God will forgive thee, thou couldst not bear 
 To look upon thy country's wreck, and see, 
 Torn and mutilated a form once so fair. 
 Or live a haughty victor's victim, to be. 
 And outlast the last throbs of Liberty ; 
 Thy stern, unselfish spirit, endowed 
 With Rome's early greatness, was far too free 
 To grace a traitor's triumph, far too proud 
 To echo the hollow acclamations of the crowd. 
 
 Time embalms the free; they know no death, save 
 Such as that our aflfections feel, when we. 
 Among the hallowed relics of the grave. 
 Trace back the broken threads of memory, 
 Or look on the Past's silent, stormless sea. 
 Where Hope throws no Iris, where each far line 
 Of Thought and feeling's tracked by dust ; gloomy. 
 The mind treads o'er the ashes of its love, and Time 
 Builds from these the heart's sanctuary, and its shrine. 
 
 5* 
 
54 BONAPARTE. 
 
 That which Virtue hallows can ne^er decay ; 
 Genius, with its emblazoned glory, 
 Has no brighter, purer, intenser ray 
 To light the fires of Immortality, 
 Than worth's deep, but mild gentle purity; 
 Or prouder triumphs, they are of the soul. 
 And like the orbs, that thronging thread the sky, 
 Ever majestically onward roll, 
 Self-supported, these heighten the grandeur of the whole. 
 
 All else, are but the mummies of the mind; 
 We look on graves, and we traverse ages; 
 We sit by ruins, where the moaning wind 
 A requiem seems; we turn o'er pages. 
 Bright with splendid thought, listen to sages. 
 Whose voice is God's echo ; what learn we there ? 
 Mind 'gainst mind, embattled, ceaseless war wages, 
 And history's cold records, when laid bare. 
 What Hope give they, or what shelter to our despair? 
 
 Worth's modest gentleness, the ideal seems 
 Of Earth's glory, one of those forms, that lie 
 Upon our hearts, and hover in our dreams, 
 
BONAPARTE. 55 
 
 The voiceless visions of our memory — 
 Oh ! who can bear to see young Beauty die, 
 See life's violet softness fast decay, 
 With angel's patience, a mortal's agony ; 
 And Virtue, Love or Beauty, what are they 
 But flashings forth of the same immortal ray ? 
 
 And where was Cincinnatus, and his plough? 
 That old man, so sternly independent. 
 Who spurned to place a crown upon his brow, 
 Save the one his country's gratitude sent? 
 Yet who, like him, has to a people lent 
 More of fame, of power, or dignity. 
 One of those bright names in the firmament 
 Of Glory, not set round, with fiery 
 Ambition's greatness, but the soul's integrity. 
 
 Did his peaceful image rise before thee. 
 
 When thou, thy marshaled legions marched to Rome? 
 
 Professing France's pitiless mockery 
 
 Of man's rights, and universal freedom. 
 
 O'er thy spirit, was a softer feeling thrown ? 
 
 Or didst thou doubt the worth of power or fame, 
 
5() BONAPARTE. 
 
 Or lose the dazzling grandeur of a throne ? 
 When thou foundest all the glory man may claim, 
 E'en Caesar's, grew dim beside Cincinnatus' name. 
 
 When war's wild alarums rung through thy heart, 
 Bringing the victor's glow of power and pride, 
 Did not his name a thought to thee impart 
 Of that with which true greatness is allied ? 
 Whose high claims are by ages, ne'er denied, 
 And whose worth, e'en envy cannot bring down? 
 Love of country, with virtue by its side. 
 Withstands a monarch's mockery, a tyrant's frown, 
 Outlasts the sceptre's splendor, the lustre of a crown. 
 
 And his destiny might too have been thine, 
 And fate for thee as high a glory won, 
 Hadst thou not preferred to form a kingly line, 
 And rival the fierce Visigoth or Hun, 
 And be Europe's Alaric, and o'errun 
 With Christain warriors her plains, and all 
 Her wide bounds bring under thy dominion; 
 Making thrones thy footstool, and crowns thy ball, 
 France's victor monarch, Italia's second Hannibal. 
 
BONAPARTE. 57 
 
 What an example ! it was thine to give, 
 Of scorn, for what vulgar minds call renown; 
 Earth's gewgaw grandeur ! that cannot outlive 
 The first shock or storm, but is shaken down 
 With the weight of its own weakness, and strown 
 Like rotten timber ; and thus fell thy throne, 
 When thou cam'st, at last, to seize and wear a crown, 
 And thou, in thy heart, must have felt that flown 
 Was the majesty that belongs to worth alone. 
 
 The purple vestiture of power to all 
 Is a temptation and a danger, though few 
 Have marked its worthlessness, till their fall; 
 Stern misfortune, does then the heart imbue 
 With strength to separate the false and true, 
 And teaches it the modesty of wisdom. 
 But nature's dignity, that doth endue 
 The soul with vigor, belongs but to one. 
 The western world's peerless patriot, Washington. 
 
 That mild conqueror, who though all untaught 
 In schools or war, yet from out his own heart 
 The councils of sage and warrior brought ; 
 
58 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Whose soul, holding all virtues, had the art, 
 To mingle the soldier's and the statesman's part; 
 In each great, though sublimer soared his fame 
 When spreading Freedom's universal chart, 
 He showed how high, the glory man may claim. 
 Though not by rapine won, or the sword's blood-dyed stain. 
 
 The world honors him ; where'er Liberty 
 Blows her clarions, his high name is blessed ; 
 E'en tyrants, who with fear regard the free. 
 Pay him homage, and those with chains opprest. 
 Know that through him, will come their hour of rest; 
 And what banner rears he, or what watchword. 
 Stirring men's rage, is to their hearts addrest? 
 Love, peace, virtue, freedom, alone are heard; 
 By these are the wronged into action fiercely stirred. 
 
 How sublime, in his high simplicity, 
 
 Like a Doric temple, amid the waste. 
 
 And ruins of Time, he stands in majesty. 
 
 Pure and unaltered ; whate'er Truth has traced, 
 
 Virtue's loftiest models, ever graced, 
 
 Is found in him; as ocean throws back the sun, 
 
BONAPARTE. 59 
 
 Its watery lustre, still undefaced, 
 Time leaves him yet, man's noblest champion! 
 A dye unstained, of the mantle nature o'er him flung. 
 
 But thou, the meaner fame preferred, of rule 
 And sway, that false dominion over men, that 
 Makes them the Tyrant's flatterer and fool ; 
 To sway, command men's destiny and fate 
 Was thy pleasure, but thou foundest, all too late, 
 Power must hold hearts, as well as minds, or fear, 
 Or wild despair will quickly dissipate 
 Ambition and its fortunes, and ruin's drear 
 Tread, track the darker vestiges of its career. 
 
 And why not have turned thee to that sister-land? 
 Whence glory comes, like light from out the sun. 
 An eternal stream ; where beauty's wizard wand. 
 Throws a lustre, o'er all man there has done ; 
 Where Genius proudly doth emblazon 
 Human thought, and, as if almost divine. 
 Gives to the mind lofty inspiration. 
 Daring in its strength, the hazards of Time, 
 Peopling worlds and ages, out Thought's exhaustless mine. 
 
60 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Why not have turned thee there? Thou lovedst to be 
 With greatness all allied, and here was more 
 Than e'er the fullest tide of victory 
 Gave to thee; on Attica's rocky shore 
 Smiles the majesty, her name ever wore ; 
 Thou dared'st not meet it; high over her is shed. 
 O'er her dying ruins, and living lore, 
 The homage we pay to the aged head. 
 The reverence due to the great and sacred Dead. 
 
 How thy ambition would have been rebuked ! 
 There, whence gathers our spirit's heritage. 
 With a conqueror's scornful eye to have looked ! 
 Where desolation is at peace, and age. 
 And ruin, smile over all, save her page ; 
 Beside the graves of heroes, not of kings, 
 Of freemen, not of slaves, would thy fierce rage 
 For war, baffled been, and the mailed hand that flings 
 To all defiance, withered in the contempt it brings. 
 
 Though a tomb, she holds the ashes of our love — 
 Though Time, the desolator, sweeps away 
 All, save thought's splendid firmament above — 
 
BONAPARTE. 61 
 
 Though barbarians, fiercer than decay, 
 And nations, cold but cruel yet as they, 
 Ravage or neglect that noble shore, still 
 She is our spirits' tutor, whence, day by day. 
 Our minds strength and nurture gather; the thrill 
 Of intellectual life, is from Minerva's hill. 
 
 Yet the child first struck the nurse and parent ; 
 He, the fortunate ! rebel ! parricide ! 
 First made in her fair form th' assassin's rent ; 
 Time hath done no more, but e'en deified. 
 With deep fondness, her glory and her pride : 
 Who have followed since? the Goth, the Vandal, 
 Fire and the barbarian, all allied 
 With Art's minor parasites ; these thy wall 
 Deface, but take not the beauty which masters all. 
 
 On that height where thy ruins are. Thought stands 
 Holding o'er her own dust the torch of mind. 
 Illuminating far empires and lands 
 With an undying flame, while men, as blind, 
 Grope among her buried treasures, and find 
 Riches; that classic wealth, which not decay 
 6 
 
62 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Moulds o'er, or newer minds dare leave behind ; 
 Shrine, sanctuary of all thought! ne'er may 
 Coming greatness rise above or sweep thee away. 
 
 Like clouds broken by the storm they appear, 
 The severed links of ages long gone by; 
 The world in bitterness lets fall its tear; 
 Though not from new or passing sympathy. 
 But as our hearts to early griefs still fly 
 When time has made them love's sacred records. 
 And left as the bosom's mourner but a sigh. 
 So Greece, with wrongs and woes too deep for words. 
 Thoughts and feelings exquisite to our life aflfords. 
 
 Parent of her ! parent of all that's great ! 
 Yet the world runs not back to thee to trace 
 The lineaments of the dead, nor does thy fate 
 Interest like thy foster-child's, whose face 
 Has thy majesty, its own simpler grace; 
 The daughter from out her own ashes smiles 
 With a beauty ruin cannot deface; 
 O'er thee Time sounds its death shriek, near thy piles. 
 Gloomy grandeur clouds the loveliness that beguiles. 
 
BONAPARTE. 63 
 
 Egypt's mighty monuments of the past, 
 Where Time its sad and sullen shadow throws, 
 Impenetrable as the grave ! a vast 
 Wreck of vast empires ! and whose grandeur grows 
 Deeper and more gloomy as the mind goes 
 O'er its ruins ; these thy ambition drew, 
 For thou wished with all that glory bestows 
 To unite thy name, and onee more renew 
 In Egypt's dust, fame of her dead, now shared by you. 
 
 Among its ashes lies the dust of kings. 
 And nations, too, there have been swept away; 
 Bones of conquerors rest with common things, 
 All th' unknown insect mortals of a day : 
 Yet what are sceptred monarchs more than they, 
 Th' undistinguished mass ? Time, death, master all. 
 The mightiest and th' unrecorded clay ; 
 And fame, grandeur, that in life seem a wall. 
 Deep enduring, crumble with them, scarce outlast their fall. 
 
 Oh ! what a mocking fiend, is dull oblivion ! 
 Who with spade and mattock, stands grimly by. 
 Dusting o'er our memories, our spirit's sexton! 
 
64 BONAPARTE. 
 
 And heaps on all men think renown and glory, 
 Deep forgetfulness ; our life's history- 
 Is beneath, not above earth's mouldering clay, 
 And that we would think immortality 
 Melts and vanishes like the ocean's spray, 
 Or like the grass, that withers above where we lay. 
 
 Yet here among the Past's vanished greatness, 
 Thou wished to be, and add another name 
 To those whom the world curse, and never bless ; 
 A Tyrant's power, relentless victor's fame 
 To naught but execration have a claim ; 
 Fools may honor them ; the monarch's sceptred rule 
 Was meant to cow the cowardly, the tame 
 Subdue, to check the passionless and cool 
 The slave's ardor, make the wise indignant, curb the fool. 
 
 Wide around thee was the wreck of Empires, 
 And of nature; o'er ocean's sunken wave 
 Trod thy horse's hoof, and thy ambition's fires 
 O'er nations' desolation, and their graves. 
 In mockery gleamed ; ashes of the dead pave 
 Thy path, and thy proud victor columns tread, 
 
^ BONAPARTE. 65 
 
 Among the tombs of the mighty and the brave; 
 Where the majesty of kings laid its head, 
 Decay's lonely grandeur, a vast sepulchre has spread. 
 
 Thou stoodst 'neath the Pyramids, what are they? 
 A Tyrant's power reared them, what end or aim! 
 Massive monuments to a mortal's clay! 
 Vestiges of a life ! without a name — 
 Mighty images of an unknown fame ! 
 Did not these teach thee what is human glory ? 
 The thing, for which men hazard all to gain ! 
 The air's idle echo might have told thee — 
 Ages would thus pass o'er thee, and thy memory. 
 
 Freedom, thy home is on the mountain's side! 
 There men's souls seem to gather strength, and their 
 Spirits all deepened too and purified 
 In the ice enamelled regions of the air ; 
 Though all doth wintry desolation wear. 
 Pride and power seem to quicken and to grow 
 Sterner, loftier, stronger, where the bare 
 Mountains lift their pinnacles, and the snow 
 Reflects the bosom's whiteness of each young hero. 
 
 6* 
 
60 BONAPARTE. 
 
 They feel the majesty that's around them, 
 The grandeur that looks defiance to the skies, 
 And the spirit within throws back again 
 The deep, full force, of all its sympathies. 
 How can such men but be free? when their eyes 
 Are filled with God's wonders, and he doth seem 
 Ever near, in the tempest, as it flies, 
 In all the sweetness, of the peaceful scene. 
 In th' avalanche and cataract's thundering stream. 
 
 The sensual love cities, and the crowd ; 
 Slaves in nature ! where passion passion meets, 
 And the world's heartless echoes peal aloud; 
 Man, with hollow promise, his fellow greets. 
 And venomed envy's heated tongue repeats 
 The blasting calumny, the felon lie. 
 That, tossed from lip to lip along the streets, 
 Forms the world's truth, while the dark, social spy. 
 Gloats over Friendship's ruin, and Love's agony. 
 
 While these, nature's hardiest sons, among 
 The rocks, and heathy hills' bleak barren side. 
 Where, from age to age, their ancestors sprung, 
 
BONAPARTE. 6T 
 
 And life's round of dull daily duties plied, 
 Till death gave the repose fortune denied, 
 Were bred ; there each affection, life-like grew, 
 The harbinger of the soul's strength and pride. 
 And there each child, in freedom manly grew. 
 By love and freedom taught to be sincerely true. 
 
 And where the pines, like deep-embattled hosts. 
 Their dark clad columns range along the sky. 
 Seeming as if they were heaven's outposts. 
 Or some slow and stern approaching ally 
 Of the mountaineers ; for far up on high, 
 These crested warriors, in masses lay. 
 Their tops, as the wind moves them, to the eye 
 Like dancing plumage float, and their array 
 Puts on war's glory, as o'er them the sunbeams play. 
 
 Among the tempests, whose harsh, hoarse voices. 
 With their discordant conflict strike the air. 
 And with many tongued unearthly noises. 
 Disturb the mountain monarch in his lair. 
 Clashing as if they heaven's front would tear, 
 While with sound on sound, roar on roar, the sky 
 
68 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Reverberates, and the sharp lightnings flare 
 Their torches, and the winds, shrieking as they fly, 
 Bear on the fierce storm's wildly bursting minstrelsy ; 
 
 There the hill side yeoman, his birth and death 
 Meets, and passes his manhood's prime, his age 
 Finds him where he first drew his infant breath. 
 And life's enacted on a single stage ; 
 Of years and hours, an unrecorded page. 
 But full of bliss, for the heart's aye the same, 
 By time unchanged ; content doth soon assuage 
 The bosom's fevered longing after fame. 
 And quiets the ambition it cannot wholly claim. 
 
 The bough on which, in childish sport they swung, 
 O'erhangs their graves ; the rough embattled steep. 
 Up whose sides they in rapid chase have sprung. 
 Daring the chasms, and precipices deep. 
 As they followed the chamois, in his leap, 
 In death's before them ; their eyes on each scene. 
 As nature settles to her final sleep. 
 Gaze in joy; and life's mysterious dream 
 Rises before them, like sunset's gently sinking beam. 
 
BONAPARTE. 
 
 And afTection too, lingers near each spot, 
 Made by association, hallowed ground — 
 For the heart allows nothing to be forgot. 
 That has been by a long alliance bound; 
 But each rock, the friend of far years, is found. 
 And each stream, trickling from its mountain glen, 
 Recalls the deepest feeling in the sound ; 
 Thus gently nature tries with harassed men, 
 To bring that they have loved most in life back again. 
 
 And thou first felt, fiercely wrought freedom's blows 
 In Tyrol's rocky passes ; each defile 
 Told the stern desperation of thy foes ; 
 O'er mountain crest and side, the time clad pile, 
 With life seemed bursting; along each broken aisle 
 Of wasted nature, burst defiance yell; 
 From rock to rock flew hope's loud cheer, the while. 
 And as the thund'ring masses crashing fell. 
 Thy once bold troops in fear stood listening to the knell. 
 
 Europe's Thermopylae ! was before thee — 
 A band as bold as that the Spartan lead, 
 A noble band of mountain peasantry. 
 
70 BONAPARTE. 
 
 With bold peasant warriors at their head ; 
 Their mail, love of country ! Tyrant's hatred ! 
 With the heart's peace, religion doth bestow. 
 Strong armed with these, they stood, stern embattled 
 Before Europe's conqueror, while the flow 
 Of vengeance was like the avalanche on the foe. 
 
 Hofer! thy name shall be a gathering word. 
 Whene'er dare Europe's millions to be free, 
 And more desolating far than the sword. 
 Drawn at will of kings, each hill, each valley, 
 Shall echo, to thy gallant memory ; 
 Time that will but make thy murderers dust, 
 Shall give to thy fame a prouder glory ; 
 Those who deride the Patriot's love, must 
 Yield, and in thy death, find their confidence and trust. 
 
 But ambition at last received its blow ! 
 
 The world had been thy slaves, very fool 
 
 To thy caprice, till thy darkening shadow 
 
 Covered empires, and thy audacious rule 
 
 Made of each defeated foe thy footstool ; 
 
 Kings thou couldst conquer, not the pride of man. 
 
BONAPARTE. 71 
 
 Whose philosophy was from nature's school ; 
 Who, struck by thee, returned the blow again — 
 And of hearts raised a rampart thou couldst not overwhelm. 
 
 This thou wast taught, 'mong Spain's Guerrilla heights ; 
 Where the Patriot's love ran warm and free, 
 Though courts and despots trampled on their rights. 
 Yet the strong, wild passion for their country 
 Naught could quench or daunt, for each cliff and tree 
 Was young life's play ground ; there its early dream 
 Was of home, peace, affection, liberty ; 
 From feelings such as these, gentle, serene — 
 The Patriot's and warrior's fire flashing gleam. 
 
 E'en Russian serfs clanked in thy face their chains. 
 As thou thy strong meteor columns lead 
 Across their dull bleak waste of sterile plains; 
 Slaves, they met thee in the battle's front, and shed 
 Like a hail storm, life's tide, until thy tread 
 Was o'er the corse, ruined hamlets, fired cities. 
 O'er fields, like the charnel house of the dead ; 
 And thou, with thy troops and thy victories, 
 Seemed but heading one of death's dull, cold pageantries. 
 
72 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Our native land is the heart's most lasting love ; 
 Whate'er befalls, as life's dark currents roll; 
 This comes to us — the olive of the dove ! 
 And forms too that stern hardihood of soul, 
 That makes men and nations great, for the whole 
 Of this our magnificent world would be 
 But a grim, dreary and desolate shoal, 
 If no spot were ours, where mortality 
 Could moulder, and near the dust we've loved calmly lie. 
 
 And this thou couldst not reach, with all thy force ! 
 Though hearts thou couldst crush, with thy despot hand. 
 But as it struck, e'en each dead peasant's corse 
 Rose a form of living vengeance through the land ; 
 Of slaughter, e'en the dying wave the brand; 
 Parents' shrieks, and children's cries, from the brave 
 Curse and blow, followed thy doomed blood track'd band ; 
 God heard them, and destruction like a wave 
 Swelled on and bore thy legions to a tombless grave. 
 
 At thy word followed Europe in thy train, 
 And ready hearts and hands, for every deed. 
 Tracking thy steps across many a plain 
 
BONAPARTE. 73 
 
 Where lay the dying soldier and the steed, 
 To mark how useless is't for man to bleed 
 In ambition's ruthless cause ; when glory 
 Shows but the grass topped corse, and blood stained weed, 
 The relics of ruin ! for History 
 To tell the tale, and consecrate the victory. 
 
 What know we of Marathon ? save the page 
 That speaks its fame, of great Thermopylae ? 
 Of brave Plataea? where in the wild rage 
 Of Grecian spirit, men for liberty. 
 And the as noble twin cause of country, 
 Ventured life ; the conqueror's bold career 
 Confronting, and daring still to be free, 
 When all seemed lost, and death was basking near 
 To strike if their courage ebbed, or hearts drooped with fear. 
 
 These battles were prouder struggles than thine; 
 The blood there shed, with the soul's energy. 
 Gushed warm; more lasting are they with time — 
 The records of events that cannot die. 
 Where nations turn, though oft despairingly. 
 Where despots ruin read, victors defeat, 
 7 
 
74 BONAPARTE. 
 
 Where from the lessons of antiquity 
 Men hope gather, and thought and power to meet 
 The same issue, and the same triumph too repeat. 
 
 What recollections leave thy battles ? fought 
 But to subdue, through slaughter gather fame ; 
 Reckless conqueror ! will young hearts be taught 
 To form their love of Glory by thy name ? 
 Aspire through thee virtue's proud power to attain? 
 Or honor's lessons in rapture rehearse ? 
 When in thee, they track ambition's bloody stain ; 
 The child may suck the venom from the nurse 
 And live. Earth find thee yet other than scourge and curse. 
 
 Yet when thou stoodst on that far isle's rocky 
 Edge, while night darkly seemed thy mood to share, 
 Though not darker than thy dread destiny, 
 Where wandered then thy mind? did the Past flare 
 Its splendor before thee ? or Glory tear 
 Its wreath, and at thy feet its fragments cast? 
 Maddened in the view of thy deep despair, 
 Or Pride wring thy heart ? and like a thunder blast 
 Pour the barbed points of sorrow, till thou sunk at last. 
 
BONAPARTE. 75 
 
 Did thy youth rise before thee ? a long gone dream ! 
 Thy manhood bring the haughty soldier's aim ? 
 Successful ambition's all dazzling gleam, 
 Crowns, glory, victory, fortune and its fame — 
 Age, the steel clad warrior's humbled shame ? 
 Defeat and its merciless misery ; 
 Disappointment's o'erbearing shock, that tame 
 Cold agony, when our thoughts droop and die, 
 By misfortune quelled, or foe's superiority. 
 
 When thou looked abroad o'er that wide strange sea. 
 All thy past, thy present, thy future, rose 
 Figured with the force of reality; 
 Like a tempest through thy brooding sorrows, 
 Thy soul sunk to that stern and deep repose, 
 Despair with affliction together form ; 
 When the heart moves languidly with our woes. 
 And no longer in excitement upborne, 
 Yields unto Fate, and bends inertly to the storm. 
 
 Thou bore not misfortune well, for its blow 
 Seemed to crush, blasting all thy energies; 
 The great are greater, in their overthrow ; . 
 
76 BONAPARTE. 
 
 By its ruthless stoicism made more wise, 
 They laugh at Hope's fair tales, or doubt's surmise, 
 And on self rely, and whether Empires 
 Are lost or won, or resistless armies 
 Sweep off all ambition's cherished desires. 
 The spirit quails not, but in its strength still aspires. 
 
 In thy last hour, when gathered round thy bed, 
 There stood the few, champions of thy fame, 
 Sole relics of thy fallen power ; for dead 
 And strewed o'er many a bloody battle plain, 
 Lay the restless elements oi thy reign — 
 All who loved thee most, for thy fortune's star. 
 Had lured, like hungry vultures to thy train. 
 Followers of thee, or thy glory's car. 
 To die crushed and trampled o'er in the storm of war. 
 
 Then where was she? thy glory's gorgeous bride ! 
 She, who thy greatness shared, but not thy fall ? 
 Who, when empires were thine, was by thy side. 
 And when the world thought thee imperial; 
 And nations harked to thy fierce trumpet call, 
 Pealing deep notes of death, and battle cries ; 
 
BONAPARTE. 77 
 
 Rousing defiance too, and the wide wall 
 Of human hearts, bulwark of destinies, 
 And sole power, that stays the march of sceptred tyrannies. 
 
 Or thy early fame's, and love's companion? 
 Who shared thy struggling spirit's daring view, 
 And warmed and warned too its aspiration. 
 She who, with the heart's truth, believed thee true. 
 Till thou to thyself a recreant grew. 
 When fortune crushed nature, and did thy soul 
 With strong ambition's avarice imbue, 
 And made thee dare on time's undying scroll, 
 To place thy name highest on its enduring roll. 
 
 She who was false fortune's first gift to thee, 
 And where, too, thy first affection rested, 
 Till in the dark control and agony 
 Of other passions, thy soaring soul fed 
 Itself, and thou in thy ficYceness wert led 
 To dash down the proffered pledge of happiness ; 
 Then off thy perjured heart the bloom withered ; 
 Thou became all ambition's, its caress 
 To ruin lured thee on, and all its bitterness. 
 
78 BONAPARTE. 
 
 See how quickly Justice, its thunder cloud 
 Drew around thee, for thy proud power died 
 Away, as does the corse within the shroud, 
 When love of glory sunk to vulgar pride, 
 And thou with meaner despots wert allied ; 
 Life's gentler joys no pleasure may impart 
 To those who upon its storms daring ride, 
 Yet when thou didst turn traitor to the heart, 
 Thy foes smiled to see thee clasp fate's envenomed dart. 
 
 Thy son, thy only hope, where then was he ? 
 Whose voice and young heart's playful innocence, 
 Might have soothed a dying father's misery; 
 Coming death, all feeling makes less intense. 
 And quickly clouds each darkly wandering sense ; 
 But still thy thoughts must to him have returned, 
 Where all affection, all hope did condense. 
 Stirring emotions thy ambition spurned, 
 The love for which thy sinking spirit now gasped and 
 yearned. 
 
 In that hour, too, did thy fierce soul implore 
 The God it so oft had spurned? or e'en look 
 
BONAPARTE. 79 
 
 Back on a life, that many a stain wore ? 
 Or did it still defy ? scorning to brook 
 The death agony that thy body shook ; 
 Ay, when the Conqueror grasped thee at last. 
 O'er the past, not future, thy spirit took 
 Its flight, and in thy death throes, seemed to cast 
 A fond look on power, that all greatness once surpast. 
 
 But yet there might have been no thoughts like these ; 
 For thy proud spirit, e'en when bowed by death, 
 Did not seem to brood o'er its agonies. 
 But as it viewed life's precipice beneath. 
 Still hovered in the stormy battle's breath ; 
 As it fled, from thy lip command's stern word 
 Was muttered, and the cannon's volumed wreath 
 Rose before thee, and the fierce horsemen spurred 
 O'er the dead, and the charging cavalry was heard. 
 
 For thy very life was mid the rattle. 
 The furious onset, the dust and blood. 
 The rush and roar of thundering battle ; 
 All, save contention, was to thy dark mood 
 But idleness, and with a still, tame flood 
 
80 BONAPARTE. 
 
 The hours moved, and thy quick thought .deeply pined, 
 Save in action that gives ambition food ; 
 The sword and lance, and bold war's serried lines. 
 Were ih' elements thou moved, stern tempest of the limes. 
 
 Ranging in the battle's front, thy keen glance 
 Roamed the field, and where war's dark tempest hung 
 Its shroud, and the steel flashed, and chargers prance, 
 And the champing war horse from his bit flung 
 The foam, as to his rider's voice he sprung, 
 Eager for the deadly contest; e'en there 
 Thy heart still lived, thy wandering spirit among 
 Charging columns, and Vesuvian glare 
 Of battle, made its last rest and dying prayer. 
 
 And then with thee, reflection did not bring 
 An instant thought of doubt, suffering or pain. 
 But freely the yet living soul took wing, 
 And rested on the battle's bloody plain. 
 And there all rose before thee, once again, 
 The silent march of stern columns, and all 
 War's grandeur, the triumph and the acclaim. 
 The conflict, the deadly struggle and fall 
 Of hosts, and all that gives to death its carnival. 
 
BONAPARTE. 81 
 
 The shadows of thy perils and renown, 
 The comrades of thy fortunes and thy fame, 
 The foes, thy trophied car had trampled down, 
 Rise among the thoughts of thy sinking brain ; 
 In mercy Heaven allowed thee to retain 
 These fragments of thy life, or memory. 
 Peopling thy dying dreams, would call the stain 
 Of fierce crimes and wrongs that fill thy story, 
 All the gloomy memorials of thy glory. 
 
 With these there came, pride and joy's pulse and thrill. 
 As before thee moved the bannered trophies 
 Of foes, who dared encounter thy fierce will ; 
 The remnants and records of victories, 
 Marshaled in living forms before thine eyes, 
 And roused in all its vigor and its force 
 Life's electric pleasure ; while dully lies 
 Each vein, draining the life blood from its source. 
 And the conqueror was fast turning to the corse. 
 
 Thy last battle, the mighty Waterloo, 
 With all the bloody horrors of its plain. 
 To thy dying senses rose clear in view, 
 
82 BONAPARTE. 
 
 And all that so fast followed in its train, 
 Rushed once more back upon thy sinking brain ; 
 Thy life's enigma there was solved, fortune 
 Seemed tired with ever adding to thy fame. 
 And having seen its birth, its morn, its noon, 
 Now deserted thee, as thy greatness sunk in gloom. 
 
 What was life worth to thee then? a few hours 
 Of battle had changed all thy destiny ; 
 Thy magnificent fortune, and its dowers, 
 The height of thy imperial glory — 
 All for which men honored and caressed thee. 
 Was past; Time struck back the hands on its plate, 
 And watched as o'er its surface fast they flew, 
 The shadows of those the world calls its great. 
 Foremost stood thine, first in ruin, darkest in fate. 
 
 All the dreary bitterness of that hour. 
 
 The agitation and the agony. 
 
 When thy but now overwhelming power 
 
 Fell before the strong stern foe's mastery. 
 
 Gave e'en death's dullness sensibility ; 
 
 O'er thy ashen cheek burst the blush of shame, 
 
BONAPARTE. 83 
 
 The last fever fire of mortality, 
 And as from life's embers flashed forth the flame, 
 Thy spirit showed e'en death could not appal or tame. 
 
 The concentrated miseries of a life, 
 All that passion ever gave man to bear. 
 The spirit struggle and contested strife, 
 Of hearts outworn and broken by despair, 
 And rankling with those griefs that never wear 
 Themselves away, were peace, e'en calm repose. 
 If with thine at that moment they compare. 
 When victory's tumultuous shout rose. 
 And told thee of ruin, the triumph of thy foes. 
 
 That at last, thou hadst struck on freedom's rock. 
 And like a ship upon the breakers cast. 
 Recoiled a wreck, all splintered in the shock, 
 That thou, who hadst so long withstood the blast 
 Of hostile tyrants' power, was crushed at last — 
 While proud Albion's isle, thou hated so. 
 Looked with a haughty smile upon the Past, 
 And as thy fragments sunk broken by her blow, 
 She still rocked calmly upon her ocean pillow. 
 
84 BONAPARTE. 
 
 All. the buried agonies of the Past, 
 Ran o'er thy mind, in that desolate hour; 
 Thy ambition's visions and its deeds, fast 
 Streamed across fading memory's failing power ; 
 Recollections, hopes, thoughts, that once did tower 
 Beyond earth's range, now bursting bubbles seemed ; 
 The honors coward man did on thee shower. 
 As flakes of melting snow ; all thou hadst dreamed 
 Of Empire, as dust, in scorn, thy dying spirit deemed. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 C 32 89 fl< 
 
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