Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1870-10-01
Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte.


peculiar interest, from the marvellous accurac
with which they apply to the circumstanc,
of Napoleon III. Il;
IT'S done--but yesterday king
And armed with kings to strive
And now thou art a nameless thing
So abject-yet alive
Is this tue man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survives
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
Nor man or fiend hath fallen 50 far
Ill-minded man who scourge thy kind
Who how'd so low the kneey
BY gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taughtst the rest to see,
With might nquestiOncd-pOwcr TO save
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipped thee:
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambitions less than littleness
Thanks for that lesson 1t will teach
To after-warriers more
Than high philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds Of men
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those PagOd things of sabre sway
With fronts of brass and feet of clay.
The triumph and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife
The earthquake 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 quelPd dark spirit what must be
The madness of thy memory!
The Desolater desolatc
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 alcne?
To die prince-or live slave
| Thy choice is most ignobly brave
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chaind by the trunk he vainly broke
Alone-hOw look'd he round =?
| Thou in the sternness of thy strength
An equal deed hast done ut length
And darker fate hast found
He fell, the forest providers prey
But thou must eat thy heart away
| The Roman, 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
or men that such yoke had borne,
Yet left him such doom
His only glory was that hour
Of sclf-uphcld abandoned power.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand
| The thunderbOt is wrung-
| Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung
All evil spirit as thou art
| 1t is enough TO grieye the heart
To see thine own unstrung,
| To think that Gods fair world hath been
The footstoOl of thing SO mean.
And earth hath split her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own
And Monarchs how'd the trembling limb
| And thanked him for a throne
| Fair Freedom b! we may hold thee dear,
| When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guisc have shown,
| Oh neer may tyrants leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain
| Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain;
| III thou hast died us honor dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame tile world again
But who would soar the solar hight
To sci in such starless night?
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay
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 mir
OF these, the Conquerors of the earth.
There was day-there was an hour
| While earth was Gaurs-Gaul thine
| When that immeasurable power
Unsated TO resign
Had been an act of purer fame
1 Than gathers round Marengo's* name
! And gilded thy decline
Through the long twilight of all time
Despite some passing clouds OF crime.
But thou forsoOth must be llking
And don the purple vest
AS If that foolish robe could wiring
Remembrance from thy breast.
| Where is that faded garment Where
The gewgaws thou vert fond 10 wear:
The star, the string, the crest 7
Vain, forward child of Empire say
Are all thy playthings snatch'd away!