Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/256

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NAPOLEON'S LAST REQUEST.

You drivelling, wretched rascal race,
Who gravely struts upon its face,
Ye shallow dolts, and half-bred knaves,
Who for a time have been my slaves,
I have not grudged to make you bleed,
Nor spared the thinning of your breed.
Soon sprout up tares to fill the ground;
The wheat, alas! I've seldom found;
And if amongst you any grew,
'Tis better mown than mixed with you.

To scourge your tribes I ne'er refused,
But man was all the scourge I used;
The hope of plunder manned my line,
And your ambition pimped for mine.
No kingdom did I overthrow,
But would have served its neighbour so;
For peace no canting monarch sued,
But would have swaggered if he could;
And that proud isle across the sea,
Wished, in her heart, to rule like me.

Then fare you well! I scorn your hate,
Nor fear, nor care, for Europe's prate;
But men shall read in after days,
Who shook her gimcracks to the base,
Alone I did it!—for I rose,
From nothing, against sceptred foes.

Napoleon's Last Request.

Ah! bury me deep in the boundless sea,
Let my heart have a limitless grave,
For my spirit in life was as fierce and free
As the course of the tempest wave;
And as far from the reach of mortal control
Were the depths of my fathomless mind;
And the ebbs and the flows of my single soul
Were tides to the rest of mankind.
Then my briny pall shall engirdle the world,
As in life did the voice of my fame,
And each mountainous billow that skyward curls
Shall to fancy re-echo my name;—