NAPOLEON AT HELENA. 39
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, nnmark'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
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