THERE sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, | |
| Whose spirit antithetically mixt | |
| One moment of the mightiest, and again | |
| On little objects with like firmness fixt, | |
| Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, | 5 |
| Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; | |
| For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek’st | |
| Even now to reassume the imperial mien, | |
| And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene! | |
| |
| Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! | 10 |
| She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name | |
| Was ne’er more bruited in men’s minds than now | |
| That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, | |
| Who woo’d thee once, thy vassal, and became | |
| The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert | 15 |
| A god unto thyself; nor less the same | |
| To the astounded kingdoms all inert, | |
| Who deem’d thee for a time whate’er thou didst assert. | |
| |
| Oh, more or less than man—in high or low, | |
| Battling with nations, flying from the field; | 20 |
| Now making monarch’s necks thy footstool, now | |
| More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield: | |
| An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, | |
| But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, | |
| However deeply in men’s spirits skill’d, | 25 |
| Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, | |
| Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. | |
| |
| Yet well thy soul hath brook’d the turning tide | |
| With that untaught innate philosophy, | |
| Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, | 30 |
| Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. | |
| When the whole host of hatred stood hard by. | |
| To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled | |
| With a sedate and all-enduring eye;— | |
| When Fortune fled her spoil’d and favorite child, | 35 |
| He stood unbow’d beneath the ills upon him piled. | |
| |
| Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them | |
| Ambition steel’d thee on too far to show | |
| That just habitual scorn which could contemn | |
| Men and their thoughts; ’twere wise to feel, not so | 40 |
| To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, | |
| And spurn the instruments thou wert to use | |
| Till they were turn’d unto thine overthrow; | |
| ’Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; | |
| So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. | 45 |
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