STANZAS

On the Death of the Duke of Reichstadt.

BY EMMA C. EMBURY.

HEIR of that name

Which shook with sudden terror the far earth-
Child of strange destinies e'en from thy birth,

When kings and princes round thy cradle came,
And gave their crowns, as playthings, to thine hand,—
Thine heritage the spoils of many a land!

How were the schemes

Of human foresight baffled in thy fate,
Thou victim of a parent's lofty state!

What glorious visions filled thy father's dreams,

When first he gazed upon thy infant face,

And deemed himself the Rodolph of his race!

Scarce had thine eyes

Beheld the light of day, when thou wert bound
With power's vain symbols, and thy young brow crowned

With Rome's imperial diadem:—the prize

From priestly princes by thy proud sire won,

To deck the pillow of his cradled son.

Bidding whole seas of blood and carnage flow Alas! when foiled on his last battle plain,

Its shattered fragments forged thy father's chain.

Far worse thy fate

Than that which doomed him to the barren rock Through half the universe was felt the shock,

When down he toppled from his high estate; And the proud thought of still acknowledged pow Could cheer him e'en in that disastrous hour.

But thou, poor boy!

Hadst no such dreams to cheat the lagging hours, Thy chains still galled, tho' wreathed with fairest f Thou hadst no images of by-gone joy,

No visions of anticipated fame,

To bear thee through a life of sloth and shame.

And where was she,

Whose proudest title was Napoleon's wife?
She who first gave, and should have watched thy
Trebling a mother's tenderness for thee,
Despoiled heir of empire? On her breast

Did thy young head repose in its unrest?

THE DEATH OF REICHSTADT.

No! round her heart

Children of humbler, happier lineage twined,
Thou couldst but bring dark memories to mind
Of pageants where she bore a heartless part;
She who shared not her monarch-husband's doom
Cared little for her first-born's living tomb.

Thou art at rest!

Child of Ambition's martyr:-life had been
To thee no blessing, but a dreary scene

Of doubt and dread and suffering at the best;

For thou wert one, whose path, in these dark times, Would lead to sorrows-it may be to crimes.

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25

TO AN OLD MAN.

BY PHILIP FRENEAU.

WHY, dotard, wouldst thou longer groan Beneath a weight of years and woThy youth is lost, thy pleasures flown, And age proclaims, ""Tis time to go."

To willows sad and weeping yews
With us awhile, old man, repair;
Nor to the vault thy steps refuse,
Thy constant home must soon be there.

To summer suns and winter moons

Prepare to bid a long adieu,

Autumnal seasons shall return

And spring shall bloom, but not for you.

Why so perplexed with cares and toil
To rest upon this darksome road;

"Tis but a thin, a thirsty soil,

A barren and a bleak abode.

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