University of Virginia Library

I hate thee, England! Not that thou
Hast flung me where I perish now:
Not that thy hand has stampt my name
On valour's lips a scoff and shame;
But that I see, and cursing see,
Thy soil, the Temple of the free,
Land of th'unconquerable mind,
Still Champion, Sovereign of mankind!

I hate thee, that thy matchless throne
Shadows no slave on earth, but one;
That one, Earth's ban and scorn, the slave
That moulders in this dungeon-cave.
And shall no after legend tell
The glorious strife in which he fell:
When rushing with his bosom gored
Upon the shrinking victor's sword,
The hero sent his dying groan
In sounds like monarchies undone.
Heaven! when in fire my eagles flew
O'er thy red torrent, Waterloo,
Had I but in the turning tide
Plunged my dishonour'd head, and died!
O had I but the heart to die!
I fled—my legions saw me fly.—
Now,—where yon billow darkly dashes,
Must sleep the coward Exile's ashes;
After many a shapeless day,
Wasted, weary, worn away,
After many an agony
Crowding on the sleepless eye;
Till, by the living world forgot,
Nor regicide's nor rebel's thought
Glancing tow'rds the distant wave,
Where earthward bent, in dull decay
The ancient Exile wastes away—
I leave the prison for the grave!

And my old murderers one by one
Sink from me, left alone—alone!
Like me with passing splendours curst
And but for me, in evil first.
Tost from a felon's streaming bier,
Sleeps shroudless, base Labedoyere;
Defiling with his gore the clay,
Feasts the slow worm the Traitor Ney;
And Murat's blazing remnants gave
Pollution to the Italian wave.
Fool!—on whose brow the royal ring
I flung in mockery—to fling
Contempt upon the name of king.
The peasant musket laid him low,
His knell is rung; what is he now!
His life in guilt—his end in fear,
Spain howling vengeance in his ear,
So sank the man of massacre.
So shall they perish, one and all,
The bloodier rise, the bloodier fall;
Each in his turn of terror laid
Beneath the bullet or the blade;
And every quivering slave shall die
Concocting on his lip the lie,
Spurn'd from life, yet loath to part,
Telling of his loyal heart,
Winding up with weep and wail
His falsehood, idle, odious, stale.

Oh! for the storm of woe and crime,
That swept me upwards once, sublime;
When cunning claim'd, what chance achieved,
'Till the wild dream myself deceived,
Half deem'd of more than mortal birth,
Or earthborn, but to trample earth;
A cloud, earth's evil to absorb,
Then stoop in lightnings on its orb;
A planet, from its centre hurl'd,
To dazzle and to waste the world;
A sceptred, desperate, demon thing,
Let loose for mankind's suffering,
While earth my fiery transit eyed,
Trembled, believed, and deified.

'Tis past—the crown in slaughter worn,
From my dark brow in wrath was torn;
I lived—to bear fate's basest blow,
To cower before my proudest foe;—
I lived—by drops my cup to drain,
The rabble's laugh—the den, the chain;
To kiss the dust, and fawn and whine
For added days to days like mine.
Till treason, murder, regicide,
All that was born of man and pride,
Turn'd from their recreant Chief in shame;
'Till, ere I perish'd, died my name,
'Till in this den of rock and wave,
All left Napoleon to the grave!