Napoleon.

BY MRS. E. P. HOWARD.

NAPOLEON! Napoleon!

Alas! that such as thou,

Whose intellect doth brightly beam
Upon a lofty brow,

Should wash thy hands in human blood,
To chase the phantom Fame;
And make this lovely earth a waste,
To win a martial name.

Brave Corsican! thou might'st have shone

With a far holier light,

Had not Ambition lured thee on,

To such a fearful height:

But once her slave, what reck'd

ye

then?

Within thy grasp a crown;

Thrones fell beneath thy conquering arm,

And empires totter'd down.

And she, the peerless Josephine,
Whose heart was all thine own;
Who ruled thy star of destiny,

And raised thee to a throne

Why sighs she thus in widowhood,
While Austria's princess shares
The regal splendor of thy home-
The partner of thy cares!

Ambition-demon of thy heart,
Still urged thro' fields of gore,
To plant thy standard o'er the land,
Amid the cannon's roar:

And bade thee wave thy banner high
O'er Ocean's vaultless deep;
And cross the lofty Alpine heights,
Thy sword in blood to steep.

Aboukir saw thy valor yield,

And Lodi's Bridge, thy power;
And Moscow's blaze lit thy retreat
From many a lofty tower.
Dark Beresina's rolling flood
Gave rest, that thou denied,
To thousands of thy soldiers true,
Who sank beneath its tide.

And Waterloo-the closing scene

Of horror, and of war,

Is chang'd for prison far away-
Dim is Napoleon's star!
Art not thou, Josephine, aveng'd?
A sea-girt isle his home;

A barren rock his resting place;

Lash'd by the ocean's foam.

We may not write thy epitaph,
Thou brave, but erring one!
The widow's and the orphan's tears
Proclaim the deeds thou'st done!
Thee, Heaven's high chancery alone
Shall judge when time shall cease!
Now, in thy own lov'd France again,
Rest, if thou canst, in peace!