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Anonymous translation from the French
THE WORK is done! the spent flame burns no more, | |
| The furnace fires smoke and die, | |
| The iron flood boils over. Ope the door, | |
| And let the haughty one pass by! | |
| Roar, mighty river, rush upon your course, | 5 |
| A bound,—and, from your dwelling past, | |
| Dash forward, like a torrent from its source, | |
| A flame from the volcano cast! | |
| To gulp your lava-waves earth’s jaws extend, | |
| Your fury in one mass fling forth,— | 10 |
| In your steel mould, O Bronze, a slave descend, | |
| An emperor return to earth! | |
| Again NAPOLEON,—’t is his form appears! | |
| Hard soldier in unending quarrel, | |
| Who cost so much of insult, blood, and tears, | 15 |
| For only a few boughs of laurel! | |
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| For mourning France it was a day of grief, | |
| When, down from its high station flung, | |
| His mighty statue, like some shameful thief, | |
| In coils of a vile rope was hung; | 20 |
| When we beheld at the grand column’s base, | |
| And o’er a shrieking cable bowed, | |
| The stranger’s strength that mighty bronze displace | |
| To hurrahs of a foreign crowd; | |
| When, forced by thousand arms, head-foremost thrown, | 25 |
| The proud mass cast in monarch mould | |
| Made sudden fall, and on the hard, cold stone | |
| Its iron carcass sternly rolled. | |
| The Hun, the stupid Hun, with soiled, rank skin, | |
| Ignoble fury in his glance, | 30 |
| The emperor’s form the kennel’s filth within | |
| Drew after him, in face of France! | |
| On those within whose bosoms hearts hold reign, | |
| That hour like remorse must weigh | |
| On each French brow,—’t is the eternal stain, | 35 |
| Which only death can wash away! | |
| I saw, where palace-walls gave shade and ease, | |
| The wagons of the foreign force; | |
| I saw them strip the bark which clothed our trees, | |
| To cast it to their hungry horse. | 40 |
| I saw the Northman, with his savage lip, | |
| Bruising our flesh till black with gore, | |
| Our bread devour,—on our nostrils sip | |
| The air which was our own before! | |
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| In the abasement and the pain,—the weight | 45 |
| Of outrages no words make known,— | |
| I charged one only being with my hate: | |
| Be thou accursed, Napoleon! | |
| O lank-haired Corsican, your France was fair, | |
| In the full sun of Messidor! | 50 |
| She was a tameless and a rebel mare, | |
| Nor steel bit nor gold rein she bore; | |
| Wild steed with rustic flank;—yet, while she trod,— | |
| Reeking with blood of royalty, | |
| But proud with strong foot striking the old sod, | 55 |
| At last, and for the first time, free,— | |
| Never a hand, her virgin form passed o’er, | |
| Left blemish nor affront essayed; | |
| And never her broad sides the saddle bore, | |
| Nor harness by the stranger made. | 60 |
| A noble vagrant,—with coat smooth and bright, | |
| And nostril red, and action proud,— | |
| As high she reared, she did the world affright | |
| With neighings which rang long and loud. | |
| You came; her mighty loins, her paces scanned, | 65 |
| Pliant and eager for the track; | |
| Hot Centaur, twisting in her mane your hand, | |
| You sprang all booted to her back. | |
| Then, as she loved the war’s exciting sound, | |
| The smell of powder and the drum, | 70 |
| You gave her Earth for exercising ground, | |
| Bade Battles as her pastimes come! | |
| Then, no repose for her,—no nights, no sleep! | |
| The air and toil for evermore! | |
| And human forms like unto sand crushed deep, | 75 |
| And blood which rose her chest before! | |
| Through fifteen years her hard hoofs’ rapid course | |
| So ground the generations, | |
| And she passed smoking in her speed and force | |
| Over the breast of nations; | 80 |
| Till,—tired in ne’er earned goal to place vain trust, | |
| To tread a path ne’er left behind, | |
| To knead the universe and like a dust | |
| To uplift scattered human kind,— | |
| Feebly and worn, and gasping as she trode, | 85 |
| Stumbling each step of her career, | |
| She craved for rest the Corsican who rode. | |
| But, torturer! you would not hear; | |
| You pressed her harder with your nervous thigh, | |
| You tightened more the goading bit, | 90 |
| Choked in her foaming mouth her frantic cry, | |
| And brake her teeth in fury-fit. | |
| She rose,—but the strife came. From farther fall | |
| Saved not the curb she could not know,— | |
| She went down, pillowed on the cannon-ball, | 95 |
| And thou wert broken by the blow! | |
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| Now born again, from depths where thou wert hurled, | |
| A radiant eagle dost thou rise; | |
| Winging thy flight again to rule the world, | |
| Thine image reascends the skies. | 100 |
| No longer now the robber of a crown,— | |
| The insolent usurper,—he, | |
| With cushions of a throne, unpitying, down | |
| Who pressed the throat of Liberty,— | |
| Old slave of the Alliance, sad and lone, | 105 |
| Who died upon a sombre rock, | |
| And France’s image until death dragged on | |
| For chain, beneath the stranger’s stroke,— | |
| NAPOLEON stands, unsullied by a stain: | |
| Thanks to the flatterer’s tuneful race, | 110 |
| The lying poets who ring praises vain, | |
| Has Cæsar ’mong the gods found place! | |
| His image to the city-walls gives light; | |
| His name has made the city’s hum,— | |
| Still sounded ceaselessly, as through the fight | 115 |
| It echoed farther than the drum. | |
| From the high suburbs, where the people crowd, | |
| Doth Paris, an old pilgrim now, | |
| Each day descend to greet the pillar proud, | |
| And humble there his monarch brow;— | 120 |
| The arms encumbered with a mortal wreath, | |
| With flowers for that bronze’s pall, | |
| (No mothers look on, as they pass beneath,— | |
| It grew beneath their tears so tall!)— | |
| In working-vest, in drunkenness of soul, | 125 |
| Unto the fife’s and trumpet’s tone, | |
| Doth joyous Paris dance the Carmagnole | |
| Around the great Napoleon. | |
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| Thus, Gentle Monarchs, pass unnoted on! | |
| Mild Pastors of Mankind, away! | 130 |
| Sages, depart, as common brows have gone, | |
| Devoid of the immortal ray! | |
| For vainly you make light the people’s chain; | |
| And vainly, like a calm flock, come | |
| On your own footsteps, without sweat or pain, | 135 |
| The people,—treading towards their tomb. | |
| Soon as your star doth to its setting glide, | |
| And its last lustre shall be given | |
| By your quenched name,—upon the popular tide | |
| Scarce a faint furrow shall be riven. | 140 |
| Pass, pass ye on! For you no statue high! | |
| Your names shall vanish from the horde: | |
| Their memory is for those who lead to die | |
| Beneath the cannon and the sword; | |
| Their love, for him who on the humid field | 145 |
| By thousands lays to rot their bones; | |
| For him, who bids them pyramids to build,— | |
| And bear upon their backs the stones! | |
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