My Napoleon.

("Toujours lui! lui partout!")     [XL., December, 1828.]     Above all others, everywhere I see     His image cold or burning!     My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free     The thoughts within me yearning.     My quivering lips pour forth the words     That cluster in his name of glory -     The star gigantic with its rays of swords     Whose gleams irradiate all modern story.     I see his finger pointing where the shell     Should fall to slay most rabble,     And save foul regicides; or strike the knell     Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble.     A Consul then, o'er young but proud,     With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,     But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,     And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.     And soon the Caesar, with an eye a-flame     Whole nations' contact urging     To gain his soldiers gold and fame     Oh, Sun on high emerging,     Whose dazzling lustre fired the hells     Embosomed in grim bronze, which, free, arose     To change five hundred thousand base-born Tells,     Into his host of half-a-million heroes!     What! next a captive? Yea, and caged apart.     No weight of arms enfolded     Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart     Which Nature - not her journeymen - self-moulded.     Let sordid jailers vex their prize;     But only bends that brow to lightning,     As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs     Cleave through the storm and haste where France looms bright'ning.     Alone, but greater! Broke the sceptre, true!     Yet lingers still some power -     In tears of woe man's metal may renew     The temper of high hour;     For, bating breath, e'er list the kings     The pinions clipped may grow! the Eagle     May burst, in frantic thirst for home, the rings     And rend the Bulldog, Fox, and Bear, and Beagle!     And, lastly, grandest! 'tween dark sea and here     Eternal brightness coming!     The eye so weary's freshened with a tear     As rises distant drumming,     And wailing cheer - they pass the pale     His army mourns though still's the end hid;     And from his war-stained cloak, he answers "Hail!"     And spurns the bed of gloom for throne aye-splendid!     H.L. WILLIAMS.