 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder
|  |
|
NAPOLEON
A soul inhuman? No, but human all,
If human is each passion man has known:
Scorn, hate, and love; the lust of empire, grown
To such a hight as did the world appall;—
If the same human soul may soar and crawl
As soared his and as crawled; if to be shown
The utmost heaven and hell; if to atone
For power consummate by colossal fall;—
If human 't is to see friend, partizan,
Turn, dastardly, the imperial hand to tear
That fed them; if through gnawing years to plan
Vengeance, and space to breathe the unfettered air—
No alien from his kind but very man
Slow perished on that island of despair.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder
| |
|
