508 Dramas of the Dead. 
As those outlandish loos of royal Nismes, 
Where our side had it! Is thy hero now 
No more than Cesar and Mark Antony, 
Those fam’d Dutch tailors, that historians write of ? 
Troy, and thou, Tadmor ! tailors, too, are mortal. 
Pll go, and mourn “ the statesman now no more.” (Ewit Stitehrag.) 
Napoleon. And couldst thou, Fate, in vile alliance join 
Reptiles, like these, with me? venomous grubs, 
That die of their own poison? Shall such names, 
Defiling glory’s page, appear with mine? 
Satan. Aye, like fat vermin on a lion’s mane, 
Astonish’d at their pasture. 
Napoleon. Still, oh, Fortune, 
Still be thy crown the emblematic goose ! 
And may the shears spare thy skull-epaulettes ! 
What I have been is safe, in spite of thee. 
Yet oh, imperial throne, I bought thee dear ! : 
The people’s love, the bulwark of true hearts, 
The fear’d, the dreadless, the invincible, : 
All vilely thrown away—for what? A bauble. : 
Thou, too, poor shadow of a wife and queen ! 
Thou art, indeed, a shadow to my soul, 
» Dark and beloy’d, that will not pass away, 
And stays in vain. Yet, yet I will believe, 
That in the boundless universe of God 
There yet is hope. Is not our boy with thee! : 
Widow and wife? our boy, how beautiful, : : 
“ The young Astyanax !”” I clasp ye both; 
And is not hope with him? Oh, can he prove 
Unworthy of his Sire, the desolate, 
The fate-dethron’d? ‘‘ Hail to thee, Man that shalt be !” | 
I clasp ye in my soul, and am alone. 
>Twas ever so. I perish’d as I liv’d— 
Alone—unparallel’d in life’s extremes ! 
Thou, too, wast dearly bought: oh, fatal shadow ! 
Satan. But to the island of the free belongs 
Th’ unenvied glory of thy death most lone ; 
A glory unsurpassable, unequall’d, ; 
Unfading, as the golden characters 
Which night reads calmly on her dome engrav’d, 
While the unheeded stream of ages sweeps ~ 
Along, untired, for ever and for ever. 
Napoleon. That tyrants should the tyrant overthrow, 
Is retribution just. 
Satan. *Tis also just 
That the magnanimous punisher receive 
What he hath earn’d, and wear his honours proudly. 
Napoleon. First of plebeians, why did I become 
Less than earth’s greatest? I was my own idol; 
And to myself I poorly sacrificed 
Fame in the highest. Yet, oh, Freedom! yet, 
If thou art unavenged, the island-tomb, 
Untenanted, hears ocean’s deathless foam; 
With no inscription for eternity. 
Siéyes, intrench’d in gold, smiles safe from scorn, 
If thou art unavenged; Murat’s rash plume 
Floats on the surge of horror, unappall’d, 
And Lannes still. Fall’n Angel, pardon me ! 
Ev’n thy stern soul, at.times, weeps mournful thoughts for tears.* 
* The clever Tory is said to be writing the life of Napoleon Buonaparte. He-is well 
qualified to write about two-thirds of such a book; but the concluding chapters, which 
he is unqualified to write, would, if properly written, be the most pathetic and instruc- 
tive in the world. . ny” -- 
