Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NAPOLEON AT HELENA, by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY


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NAPOLEON AT HELENA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: And who shall write thine epitaph? Thou man
Last Line: "o'er unforgiven injuries, answer'd -- ""none."
Subject(s): Exiles; Napoleon I (1769-1821)


"The moon of St. Helena shone out, and there we saw the face
of Napoleon's sepulchre, characterless, uninscribed."

And who shall write thine epitaph? thou man
Of mystery and might.
Shall orphan hands
Inscribe it with their fathers' broken swords?
Or the warm trickling of the widow's tear
Channel it slowly 'mid the rugged rock,
As the keen torture of the water-drop
Doth wear the sentenc'd brain?
Shall countless ghosts
Arise from Hades, and in lurid flame,
With shadowy finger, trace thine effigy,
Who sent them to their audit unannealed,
And with but that brief space for shrift or prayer,
Given at the cannon's mouth?
Thou who didst sit
Like eagle on the apex of the globe,
And hear the murmur of its conquer'd tribes,
As chirp the weak-voic'd nations of the grass,
Say, art thou sepulchred in yon far isle, --
Yon little speck, which scarce the mariner
Descries 'mid ocean's foam? Thou who didst hew
A pathway for thy host above the cloud,
Guiding their footsteps o'er the frost-work crown
Of the thron'd Alps, -- why dost thou sleep, unmark'd
Even by such slight memento as the hind
Carves on his own coarse tomb-stone?
Bid the throng
Who pour'd thee incense, as Olympian Jove,
Breathing thy thunders on the battle-field,
Return and deck thy monument. Those forms,
O'er the wide valleys of red slaughter strew'd,
From pole to tropic, and from zone to zone,
Heed not the clarion-call. Yet, should they rise,
As in the vision that the prophet saw,
Each dry bone to its fellow, -- or in heaps
Should pile their pillar'd dust, -- might not the stars
Deem that again the puny pride of man
Did build its Babel-stairs, creeping, by stealth,
To dwell with them? But here, unwept, thou art,
Like some dead lion in his thicket-lair,
With neither living man, nor spectre lone,
To trace thine epitaph.
Invoke the climes
That serv'd as playthings, in thy desperate game
Of mad ambition, or their treasures strew'd
To pay thy reckoning, till gaunt Famine fed
Upon their vitals. France! who gave so free
Thy life-stream to his cup of wine, and saw
That purple vintage shed o'er half the earth,
Write the first line, if thou hast blood to spare.
Thou, too, whose pride adorn'd dead Caesar's tomb,
And pour'd high requiem o'er the tyrant train
Who rul'd thee to thy cost, lend us thine arts
Of sculpture and of classic eloquence
To grace his obsequies at whose dark frown
Thine ancient spirit quail'd; and to the list
Of mutilated kings, who glean'd their meat
'Neath Agag's table, add the name of Rome.
Turn, Austria! iron-brow'd and stern of heart,
And on his monument to whom thou gav'st
In anger battle, and in craft a bride,
Grave Austerlitz, and fiercely turn away.
Rouse Prussia from her trance with Jena's name,
Like the rein'd war-horse, at the trumpet-blast,
And take her witness to that fame which soars
O'er him of Macedon, and shames the vaunt
Of Scandinavia's madman.
From the shades
Of letter'd ease, O Germany! come forth
With pen of fire, and from thy troubled scroll,
Such as thou spread'st at Leipsic, gather tints
Of deeper character than bold romance
Hath ever imag'd in her wildest dream,
Or history trusted to her sibyl leaves.
Hail, lotus-crown'd! in thy green childhood fed
By stiff-neck'd Pharaoh, and the shepherd kings,
Hast thou no trait of him who drench'd thy sands,
At Jaffa and Aboukir? when the flight
Of rushing souls went up so strange and strong
To the accusing Spirit?
Glorious isle!
Whose thrice enwreathed chain, Promethean like,
Did bind him to the fatal rock, we ask
Thy deep memento for this marble tomb.
Ho! fur-clad Russia! with thy spear of frost,
Or with thy winter-mocking Cossack's lance,
Stir the cold memories of thy vengeful brain,
And give the last line of our epitaph.

But there was silence. Not a sceptred hand
Receiv'd the challenge.
From the misty deep
Rise, island-spirits! like those sisters three,
Who spin and cut the trembling thread of life,
Rise on your coral pedestals, and write
That eulogy which haughtier climes deny.
Come, for ye lulled him in your matron arms,
And cheer'd his exile with the name of king,
And spread that curtain'd couch which none disturb;
Come, twine some bud of household tenderness,
Some tender leaflet, nurs'd with nature's tears,
Around this urn. But Corsica, who rock'd
His cradle at Ajaccio, turn'd away;
And tiny Elba in the Tuscan wave
Plung'd her slight annal with the haste of fear;
And lone St. Helena, heart-sick, and grey
'Neath rude Atlantic's scourging, bade the moon,
With silent finger, point the traveller's gave
To an unhonored tomb.
Then Earth arose,
That blind old empress, on her crumbling throne,
And, to the echoed question -- "Who shall write
Napoleon's epitaph?" -- as one who broods
O'er unforgiven injuries, answer'd -- "None."





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