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Introduction to the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte.

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LORD BYRON had always been from his early boyhood a great admirer of the "Corsican ogre.' In 1813, after the retreat from Moscow and the battle of Leipsic, the poet writes: "What strange tidings from that Anak of anarchy, Buonaparte. Ever since I defended my bust of him at Harrow against the rascally time-servers when the war broke out in 1803, he has been a 'Heros de Roman' of mine-on the Continent; I don't want him here.... To be beaten by men would be something, but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty boobies of regular bred sovereigns. It must be as Cobbett says, his marriage with the thick lipped and thick headed Antrichienne brood. He had better have kept to her who was kept by Barras." It will be seen that there was a great difference between Lord Byron's sentiments in prose and those of his poetry. The Ode was written the day after the news of the abdication of Fontainebleau reached London. He had just reiterated his resolution to write no more poetry until he was thirty, and to preserve the appearance of consistency, refrained from putting his name on the title page. The three last stanzas were never printed during the poet's life. He said: "I do not like them at all, and they had better be left out. The fact is, I can't do anything I am asked to do, however gladly I would, and at the end of a week my interest in a composition goes off." There is no doubt that all Lord Byron's poems written to request are of very inferior merit to the others. The first sixteen stanzas of the Ode are in his best style, and most of the thoughts are beautifully expressed. The description of Marie Louise as "proud Austria's mourn ful flower," was pirated by a poet of very different calibre, Mr Robert Montgomery.

Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte.

I.

'Tis done-but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive ?1

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

II.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestion'd,-power to save,-
Thine only gift hath been the grave,
To those that worshipp'd 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 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.

IV.

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 seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of the memory!

V.

The Desolator desolate !

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 rock,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-
Alone-how look'd he round?

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,

And darker fate has found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

VII.

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
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

VIII.

The Spaniard,+ when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
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:

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

* Sylla.

† Charles the Fifth.

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