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? To die a prince, or live a slave, - He who of old would rend the oak And darker fate hast found: He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey ; But thou must eat thy heart away! The Roman, when his burning heart Of men that such a yoke had borne, His only glory was that hour The Spaniard, when the lust of sway A strict accountant of his beads, A subtle disputant on creeds, All evil spirit as thou art, It is enough to grieve the heart To think that God's fair world hath been And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, And monarchs bowed the trembling limb, Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, If thou hadst died as honor dies, While brooding in thy prisoned rage? Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, NAPOLEON. FROM "CHILDE HAROLD." LORD BYRON. Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning With that untaught innate philosophy, When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, With a sedate and all-enduring eye, When Fortune fled her spoiled and favorite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled. Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow; 'T is but a worthless world to win or lose; THERE sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who One moment of the mightiest, and again Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield: An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, choose. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved Their admiration thy best weapon shone ; But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the lofti- Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor war, Their breath is agitation, and their life He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind LORD BYRON. ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF REICH- HEIR of that name Which shook with sudden terror the far earth! came, Trebling a mother's tenderness for thee? No! round her heart And gave their crowns, as playthings, to thine Child of Ambition's martyr! Life had been Those were his words: I 've treasured up With pride that same wine-cup; And for its weight in gold It never shall be sold !" "Mother, on that proud relic let us gaze. O, keep that cup always!" "But through some fatal witchery He, whom a pope had crowned and blest, Perished, my sons, by foulest treachery, Cast on an isle far in the lonely West! Long time sad rumors were afloat, The fatal tidings we would spurn, "Mother, may God his fullest blessing shed Upon your aged head!" FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT). To see the French war-steamers speeding over From its one heart a nation wailed, for well the startled sense divined A greater power had fled away than aught that now remained behind. Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, The sea-coast opposite; with sword-like thought Had been to many a million hearts the all between themselves and naught; And now they roared, at drum-beat, from their And so they stood aghast and pale, as if they The lamp that, mid the sacred cell, on heavenly forms its glory sheds, Untended dies, and in the gloom a poisonous vapor glimmering spreads. NOT oft before has peopled earth sent up so It shines and flares, and reeling ghosts enormous deep and wide a groan, through the twilight swell, As when the word swept over France, "The life Till o'er the withered world and heart rings loud of Mirabeau is flown!" and slow the dooming knell. |