Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/251

A little urn—a little dust inside,
Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit
To-day, a four-years' child might carry it,
Sleek-browed and smiling "Let the burden 'bide!"
Orestes to Electra!—O fair town
Of Paris, how the wild tears will run down,

And run back in the chariot-marks of Time,
When all the people shall come forth to meet
The passive victor death-still in the street
He rode through 'mid the shouting and bell-chime
And martial music,—under eagles which
Dyed their ensanguined beaks at Austerlitz!

Napoleon! he hath come again—borne home
Upon the popular ebbing heart,—a sea
Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually,
Majestically moaning. Give him room!—
Room for the dead in Paris! welcome solemn
And grave-deep, 'neath the cannon-moulded column!^[1]

There, weapon spent and warrior spent may rest
From roar of fields! provided Jupiter
Dare trust Saturnus to lie down so near
His bolts!—And this he may! For, dispossessed
Of any godship, lies the godlike arm—
The goat, Jove sucked, as likely to do harm!

And yet . . . Napoleon!—the recovered name
Shakes the old casements of the world! and we
Look out upon the passing pageantry,
Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim
To a Gaul grave,—another kingdom won—
The last—of few spans—by Napoleon!

Blood fell like dew beneath his sunrise—sooth!
But glittered dew-like in the covenanted
And high-rayed light. He was a tyrant—granted!
But the αυτος of his autocratic mouth

1. It was the first intention to bury him under the column.