My Lyrical Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Slaves that make Tyrants recognize their own.
Safe at the heart of you they have their Throne
And wave the Banner that will not go down;
Your blindness is an everlasting Crown;
The self-forged fetters of the Soul are yours;
You make a Dungeon of all Out-of-doors!

Your mind is just the mould that will re-cast
The Image God—the great Iconoclast—
For ever breaks. The Tyrant lifted o'er ye
Is but the Slave's own self seen in its glory,
And this Man, most abjectly fallen, will
Be Emperor of Snobs and Flunkeys still.

397

The Seaweed on our shore's securely tossed,
But there's a Nation wrecked. What of the Lost?
Poor France, that from the Imperial fetters freed,
Tears at her flesh they chafed so till it bleed,
France must be smelted in the fires of War,
To rid her of His image stamped on her,—
He who coined her in his likeness, sealed her shame,
Branding her with his features and his name.

This is your Hero! let me ope your dim
Dust-blinded eyes, for one true look at him!

To conquer Europe, bid all fears to cease,
As Emperor he proclaimed his Empire Peace.
The Eagle that he mounted was the tame
Dirt-draggled fowl of Boulogne; not the same
Old Bird of glory, with its wings of flame,
That perched on all the Pinnacles of Fame.

And yet, 'tis at your peril you believe
Those who are truthful only to deceive!
He found a troubled world would doubt his word.
At length—full length—he drew the famous sword
Of France—Napoleon's sword. Ex-calibre!
To prove, in deed, the Empire was not War:
Then flung away its scabbard: rushed to meet
The Foe, and—laid the weapon at his feet.
From Coup d'État to Coup de Grâce you see
The Empire was not War—'twas Butchery.

Nature but made him a Conspirator,
Not General. She is answerable for
A great empiric: not an Emperor.

398

He should have kept his secret safe and far
From the stern lightning-eyes of searching War.
His place was not the front of battle, where
In slaying one another men play fair;
Safe in the rear it was his rôle to stand,
With dagger and dark-lantern in his hand,
And strike at unarmed captives from behind,
And only strike at such as he could bind.
He should have throttled France again by night
Quietly, while she slept, without a fight!
Behind his Mitrailleuse he might have slunk,
And massacred once more with soldiers drunk.
Why come forth in the light to let us see
The immeasurable incapacity?
Why drop the midnight mask, knowing so well
His nothingness if not inscrutable?
Why daze himself by day—look like a stark-
Blind fool—with such a genius for the dark?

He must not be stamped out, now he is down,
Even though the Sword, into the War-scale thrown,
Be followed by his Sceptre and his Crown.
He must not slink from sight!

When he is dead,
Take him, O Earth! like those half-burièd
And wholesale-murdered in Montmartre, with head
Exposed, to be identified with dread.
Outside Time's travelling Show, let him be seen
As Fieschi on the throne, with his Machine,
Firing at Freedom—grinding on that grim
Gun-barrel-organ, turned to war by him,—
Making infernal music for the dance
Of Death: the flight in which he led poor France.

399

A figure so grotesque, such cause must give
For horror, as will earn its right to live!

And You, who are supposed our blood to share,
Unworthy of the English name you bear,
You mob his gates, you wag the tail, and stand,
Proud to be patted by him, and lick his hand;
Lickspittles (He was spat forth by his land),
Mouth-watering with the slaver of the slave!
(A different licking German freemen gave).

Good friend of France? He made her flourish? So
Heat without light will make the fungi grow;
He puffed her up as creatures of decay
Raise the Oak-galls that eat the life away.
He sapped her, made her rotten to the root,
And, at the breath of War, down fell the fruit.
Good friend of England he could never be
Who was born-natural foe to Liberty.
Get up, go home, be henpecked by your Wives
And sat on the remainder of your lives;
The “evil” that you suffer from is such
As is not cured by any Royal touch.
If Hell grew sick, and heaved the Devil out,
Fools, on all-fours, like you, would fawn and shout
Congratulations on his glorious reign,
And wish him joy in making Hell again.