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Anonymous translation
THE CLOUDS are dark, and the winds are wailing; | |
| The sky is deserted of moon and star. | |
| It is the hour when the ship goeth sailing | |
| Along the dusk ocean fast and far. | |
| That lone ship, steered by a viewless hand, | 5 |
| And pauseless on her path, | |
| No storm shall wreck; she shall, reach the strand | |
| Unharmed by the elements’ wrath. | |
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| Far out in the offing, where on the billows | |
| The winds are dumb, and the stilled air dies, | 10 |
| Arises a barren rock, and pillows | |
| Its naked head amid burning skies. | |
| There nothing bloometh of green or soft; | |
| No blithe bird nestles there; | |
| The eagle alone, from his throne aloft, | 15 |
| Reigns over a desert bare. | |
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| Yet there sleeps he who was Europe’s lord, | |
| Her king, her hero, her man of doom, | |
| And his head-gear, golden sceptre, and sword | |
| Lie noteless on his forsaken tomb. | 20 |
| No voice bewails the illustrious dead; | |
| It is silentness all and dearth, | |
| It is ghastly gloom round the last low bed | |
| Of the mightiest spirit of earth! | |
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| And the moons roll round, and the seasons duly, | 25 |
| And stark the emperor lieth alway, | |
| Till again in its course refalleth newly | |
| The stormful night of the fifth of May. | |
| Amiddle that black and dolorous night | |
| He passed from this world of strife, | 30 |
| And, when it returns, in the swift year’s flight, | |
| He awakes for a while to life. | |
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| And now, as the conquered gale is dying, | |
| The ship approaches in phantom-show, | |
| A spectre-flag at her mast-head flying | 35 |
| Of golden bees on a field of snow. | |
| And the king embarks, in the moonlight blue, | |
| And away she hies as a bird, | |
| Without a pilot, without a crew, | |
| And with sails all wind-unstirred. | 40 |
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| He paces her deck, that hero of story, | |
| And looks abroad through the desert night. | |
| His thoughts fly back to his years of glory; | |
| His eyes rekindle with living light. | |
| And on she speeds to the ancient shore | 45 |
| Of history and romance,— | |
| And the hero’s heart leaps up once more,— | |
| He knows his beloved France! | |
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| Again he treadeth her soil, which trembles | |
| Beneath the feet of the genius of war; | 50 |
| But, how changed seems all! The land resembles | |
| The wreck, the shell of a burnt-out star! | |
| He seeketh her cities, but findeth none,— | |
| He looks for her armies in vain,— | |
| They flourished, they lived, but under the sun | 55 |
| Of his resplendent reign! | |
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| He seeks the throne that he won by conquest; | |
| ’T is trod into dust with the things that were. | |
| France knows it no more! Yet still hath he one quest,— | |
| The father looks round for his royal heir; | 60 |
| He calls aloud for the boy whose birth | |
| Was hailed as the hope of the age; | |
| Alas! his life is outblotted from earth, | |
| His name from history’s page! | |
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| “All, all are gone!” cries the desolate-hearted,— | 65 |
| “My glory, my people, my son, my crown! | |
| O, how are the days of my power departed! | |
| How lost is the nation I raised to renown! | |
| My house and my hopes alike lie prone | |
| In an all-engulfing grave,— | 70 |
| A slave sits now upon Cæsar’s throne, | |
| And Cæsar hath sunk to a slave!” | |
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