WHAT of the night, ho! Watcher there | |
| Upon the armed deck, | |
| That holds within its thunderous lair | |
| The last of empire’s wreck,— | |
| E’en him whose capture now the chain | 5 |
| From captive earth shall smite; | |
| Ho! rocked upon the moaning main, | |
| Watcher, what of the night? | |
| |
| “The stars are waning fast, the curl | |
| Of morning’s coming breeze | 10 |
| Far in the north begins to furl | |
| Night’s vapor from the seas. | |
| Her every shred of canvas spread, | |
| The proud ship plunges free, | |
| While bears afar, with stormy head, | 15 |
| Cape Ushant on our lee.” | |
| |
| At that last word, as trumpet-stirred, | |
| Forth in the dawning gray | |
| A silent man made to the deck | |
| His solitary way. | 20 |
| And, leaning o’er the poop, he gazed | |
| Till on his straining view | |
| That cloudlike speck of land, upraised, | |
| Distinct, but slowly grew. | |
| |
| Well may he look until his frame | 25 |
| Maddens to marble there; | |
| He risked Renown’s all-grasping game, | |
| Dominion or despair, | |
| And lost; and lo! in vapor furled, | |
| The last of that loved France, | 30 |
| For which his prowess cursed the world, | |
| Is dwindling from his glance. | |
| |
| He lives, perchance, the past again, | |
| From the fierce hour when first | |
| On the astounded hearts of men | 35 |
| His meteor-presence burst,— | |
| When blood-besotted Anarchy | |
| Sank quelled amid the roar | |
| Of thy far-sweeping musketry, | |
| Eventful Thermidor! | 40 |
| |
| Again he grasps the victor-crown | |
| Marengo’s carnage yields, | |
| Or bursts o’er Lodi, beating down | |
| Bavaria’s thousand shields; | |
| Then, turning from the battle-sod, | 45 |
| Assumes the Consul’s palm, | |
| Or seizes giant empire’s rod | |
| In solemn Notre Dame. | |
| |
| And darker thoughts oppress him now,— | |
| Her ill-requited love, | 50 |
| Whose faith as beauteous as her brow | |
| Brought blessings from above, | |
| Her trampled heart, his darkening star, | |
| The cry of outraged man, | |
| And white-lipped Rout and wolfish War, | 55 |
| Loud thundering on his van. | |
| |
| Rave on, thou far-resounding deep, | |
| Whose billows round him roll! | |
| Thou ’rt calmness to the storms that sweep | |
| This moment o’er his soul. | 60 |
| Black chaos swims before him, spread | |
| With trophy-shaping bones; | |
| The council-strife, the battle-dead, | |
| Rent charters, cloven thrones. | |
| |
| Yet, proud one! could the loftiest day | 65 |
| Of thy transcendent power | |
| Match with the soul-compelling sway | |
| Which in this dreadful hour | |
| Aids thee to hide beneath the show | |
| Of calmest lip and eye | 70 |
| The hell that wars and works below, | |
| The quenchless thirst to die? | |
| |
| The white dawn crimsoned into morn, | |
| The morning flashed to day, | |
| And the sun followed glory-born, | 75 |
| Rejoicing on his way, | |
| And still o’er ocean’s kindling flood | |
| That muser cast his view, | |
| While round him awed and silent stood | |
| His fate’s devoted few. | 80 |
| |
| O for the sulphureous eve of June, | |
| When down that Belgian hill | |
| His bristling Guards’ superb platoon | |
| He led unbroken still! | |
| Now would he pause, and quit their side | 85 |
| Upon destruction’s marge, | |
| Nor kinglike share with desperate pride | |
| Their vainly glorious charge? | |
| |
| No,—gladly forward he would dash | |
| Amid that onset on, | 90 |
| Where blazing shot and sabre-crash | |
| Pealed o’er his empire gone; | |
| There, ’neath his vanquished eagles tost, | |
| Should close his grand career, | |
| Girt by his heaped and slaughtered host | 95 |
| He lived,—for fetters here! | |
| |
| Enough,—in noontide’s yellow light | |
| Cape Ushant melts away, | |
| Even as his kingdom’s shattered might | |
| Shall utterly decay, | 100 |
| Save when his spirit-shaking story, | |
| In years remotely dim, | |
| Warms some pale minstrel with its glory | |
| To raise the song to him. | |
| |
