'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
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star
Nor man nor fiend bath fallen so far

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
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
To those that worshipp'd thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson--It will teach
To after-warriors morе
Than high Philosophy can preach
And vainly preach'd beforе
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
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 seem'd made but to obey
Wherewith renown was rife--
All quell'd!--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--
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

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
An equal deed halt done at length
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
The Roman, 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
Of 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

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 subtle disputant on creeds
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne

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;
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!
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!

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?

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

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 vanish'd diadem!

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
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage
What thoughts will there be thine
While brooding in thy prison'd 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 pour'd so widely forth--
So long obey'd--so little worth!

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
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!

There was a day--there was an hour
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
And gilded thy decline
Through the long twilight of all time
Despite some passing clouds of crime

But thou forsooth must be a king
And don the purple vest
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast
Where is that faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou Overt fond to wear
The star, the string the crest?
Vain froward child of empire! say
Are all thy playthings snatched away?

Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows
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
To make man blush there was but one!