Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse By the Rev. Robert Montgomery ... Third Edition--Revised and Enlarged |
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NAPOLEON AT MOSCOW. |
 | Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse |  |
146
NAPOLEON AT MOSCOW.
Lo! where the Tyrant felt a flood of wrath
From Heaven poured down upon his guilty head,—
Where first he knew himself a Man! Yon spires
With golden pinnacles that pierce the clouds,
And river, winding by the pallid walls,
Proclaim where unforgotten Moscow stands:
There raged a scene that ruined angels love
To witness, when the vaunting sons of clay
Grow demon-like, and shudd'ring Time beholds
The fellest misery that man can feel!
As when all-wildly through the unbarred gates,
Like savage war-fiends, his marauders swept,
And saw the city billowed into flames,
Like a far ocean blazing through the storm,—
Then Havoc started with a thrilling shout;
The shriek of violated maids, the curse
Of dying mothers, and despairing sires,
And dash of corpses, torn from royal tombs
And plunged amid devouring flames, were heard
Terrific,—Moscow seemed a maddening hill!
But who, when Rapine could not pillage more,
While cannon-thunder chased the daunted winds,
Paused on a desert heath, in speechless ire,
And marked the remnant of a ruined host
Flying, and pale as phantoms of Despair?
Napoleon! in the tempest of thy soul,
The elements were reaping vengeance then;
While Slaughter turned the tide of Victory,
And rolled it back upon thy powerless host
Of famished warriors, freezing as they died!
That hour of agony,—the crushing sense
Of danger and defeat,—the broken spell
That blasted all thy triumphs into shame,
Sublimed thy spirit with so proud a pang,
It longed to swell into a million souls,
And shake the universe to save a throne!
From Heaven poured down upon his guilty head,—
Where first he knew himself a Man! Yon spires
With golden pinnacles that pierce the clouds,
And river, winding by the pallid walls,
Proclaim where unforgotten Moscow stands:
There raged a scene that ruined angels love
To witness, when the vaunting sons of clay
Grow demon-like, and shudd'ring Time beholds
The fellest misery that man can feel!
As when all-wildly through the unbarred gates,
Like savage war-fiends, his marauders swept,
And saw the city billowed into flames,
Like a far ocean blazing through the storm,—
Then Havoc started with a thrilling shout;
The shriek of violated maids, the curse
Of dying mothers, and despairing sires,
And dash of corpses, torn from royal tombs
And plunged amid devouring flames, were heard
Terrific,—Moscow seemed a maddening hill!
147
While cannon-thunder chased the daunted winds,
Paused on a desert heath, in speechless ire,
And marked the remnant of a ruined host
Flying, and pale as phantoms of Despair?
Napoleon! in the tempest of thy soul,
The elements were reaping vengeance then;
While Slaughter turned the tide of Victory,
And rolled it back upon thy powerless host
Of famished warriors, freezing as they died!
That hour of agony,—the crushing sense
Of danger and defeat,—the broken spell
That blasted all thy triumphs into shame,
Sublimed thy spirit with so proud a pang,
It longed to swell into a million souls,
And shake the universe to save a throne!
Thy race is o'er; and in the rocky isle
Of Ocean, canopied with willow-shade,
In death's undreaming calm thou restest now;
But all the splendid infamy of War,
The fame of blood and bravery, is thine:—
Thy name hath havoc in its sound! and Time
Shall read it when his ages roll,—'twill live
When Time and Nature are forgotten words!
For, as a noble fame can never die,
But proudly passeth on from earth to heaven,
There to be hymn'd by angels, and to crown
With bright pre-eminence the gifted mind
That won it gloriously; so evil fame,
A fiery torment to the soul may be
Forever: let Ambition think of this,
Who murders kings, to make her heroes gods.
Of Ocean, canopied with willow-shade,
In death's undreaming calm thou restest now;
But all the splendid infamy of War,
The fame of blood and bravery, is thine:—
Thy name hath havoc in its sound! and Time
Shall read it when his ages roll,—'twill live
When Time and Nature are forgotten words!
For, as a noble fame can never die,
148
There to be hymn'd by angels, and to crown
With bright pre-eminence the gifted mind
That won it gloriously; so evil fame,
A fiery torment to the soul may be
Forever: let Ambition think of this,
Who murders kings, to make her heroes gods.
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