"Expende Annibalem:—quot libras in duce summo
Invenies?"
Juvenal, [Lib. iv.] Sat. x. line 147.[decimal 2]
I.
'Tis done—but yesterday a King!
And armed with Kings to strive—
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject—yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?[decimal 4]
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,[decimal 5]
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
II.[decimal 6]
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bowed so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestioned,—power to save,—
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!
III.
Thanks for that lesson—it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men[decimal 7]
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.
IV.
The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife—[decimal 8]
The earth quake-voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife—
All quelled!—Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!
V.[decimal 9]
The Desolator desolate![decimal 10]
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!
VI.
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dreamed not of the rebound;[decimal 11]
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke—
Alone—how looked he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
VII.
The Roman,[decimal 12] 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 abandoned power.
VIII.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,[decimal 13]
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:[decimal 14]
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
IX.
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;
X.
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked 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!
XI.
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?[lower-roman 1]
XII.
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;[lower-roman 2]
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.
XIII.[decimal 15]
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 vanished diadem![decimal 16]
XIV.
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;[lower-roman 3]
That element may meet thy smile—
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand[lower-roman 4]
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue[decimal 17] hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.
XV.
Thou Timour! in his captive's cage[lower-roman 5][decimal 18]
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one—"The world was mine!"
Unless, like he of Babylon,[decimal 19]
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,[decimal 20]
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth—
So long obeyed—so little worth!
XVI.
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,[decimal 21]
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God—by man accurst,[lower-roman 6]
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend's arch mock;[decimal 22]
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died![lower-roman 7][decimal 23]
XVII.
There was a day—there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's—Gaul thine—[lower-roman 8]
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.
XVIII.
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[lower-roman 9]
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star, the string, the crest?[lower-roman 10][decimal 24]
Vain froward child of Empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatched away?
XIX.
Where may the wearied eye repose[lower-roman 11]
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,
Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one![lower-roman 12][decimal 25]
And look along the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
For Albion kept it free.
But gaze not on the land for there
Walks crownless Power with temples bare
And shakes the head at thee
And Corinth's Pedagogue hath now.—[Proof ii.]
Or sit thee down upon the sand
And trace with thine all idle hand.—[A final correction made in Proof ii.]
He suffered for kind acts to men
Who have not seen his like again,
At least of kingly stock
Since he was good, and thou but great
Thou canst not quarrel with thy fate.—[First Proof, stanza x.]
"Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains;
And is This All!"
"O! 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
And to suppose her chaste!"
Othello, act iv. sc. 1, lines 69-71.
"Unlike the offence, though like would be the fate—
His to give life, but thine to desolate;
He stole from Heaven the flame for which he fell,
Whilst thine be stolen from thy native Hell."
"Yes! better to have stood the storm,
A Monarch to the last!
Although that heartless fireless form
Had crumbled in the blast:
Than stoop to drag out Life's last years,
The nights of terror, days of tears
For all the splendour past;
Then,—after ages would have read
Thy awful death with more than dread.
"A lion in the conquering hour!
In wild defeat a hare!
Thy mind hath vanished with thy power,
For Danger brought despair.
The dreams of sceptres now depart,
And leave thy desolated heart
The Capitol of care!
Dark Corsican, 'tis strange to trace
Thy long deceit and last disgrace."
Morning Chronicle, April 27, 1814.]