Among the Oceanides,°-that Heart

To bind and bare and vex with vulture° fell.
I would, my noble England, men might seek
All crimson stains upon thy breast

XVIII

- not cheek!

I would that hostile fleets had scarred Torbay,°
Instead of the lone ship which waited moored
Until thy princely purpose was assured,
Then left a shadow, not to pass away

Not for to-night's moon, nor to-morrow's sun:
Green watching hills, ye° witnessed what was done!

XIX

But since it was done, in sepulchral dust

We fain would pay back something of our debt
To France, if not to honour, and forget

How through much fear we falsified the trust
Of a fallen foe and exile. We return

A little urna little dust inside,

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Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit
To-day a four-years child might carry it

Sleek-browed and smiling, "Let the burden 'bide!"
Orestes to Electra! O fair town

Of Paris, how the wild tears will run down

XXI

And run back in the chariot-marks of time,
When all the people shall come forth to meet

120

The passive victor, death-still in the street

He rode through 'mid the shouting and bell-chime
And martial music, under eagles which

Dyed their rapacious beaks at Austerlitz!°

Napoleon!

XXII

he hath come again, borne home

Upon the popular ebbing heart,

a sea

Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually,
Majestically moaning. Give him room!

Room for the dead in Paris! welcome solemn

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And grave-deep, 'neath the cannon-moulded column !°

XXIII

There, weapon spent and warrior spent may rest
From roar of fields, provided Jupiter
Dare trust Saturnus to lie down so near

His bolts! - and this he may: for, dispossessed
Of any godship lies the godlike arm-

The goat, Jove sucked, as likely to do harm.

And yet.

XXIV

Napoleon! — the recovered name
Shakes the old casements of the world; and we
Look out upon the passing pageantry,
Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim
To a French grave, another kingdom won,
The last, of few spans - by Napoleon.

XXV

Blood fell like dew beneath his sunrise.
But glittered dew-like in the covenanted

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Meridian light. He was a despot-granted!
But the aurós of his autocratic mouth

Said yea i' the people's French; he magnified
The image of the freedom he denied:

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XXVI

And if they asked for rights, he made reply "Ye have my glory!"—and so, drawing round them His ample purple, glorified and bound them

In an embrace that seemed identity.

He ruled them like a tyrant

- true! but none

155

Were ruled like slaves: each felt Napoleon.

XXVII

I do not praise this man: the man was flawed
For Adam- much more, Christ! - his knee unbent,
His hand unclean, his aspiration pent

Within a sword-sweep-pshaw!-but since he had 160
The genius to be loved, why, let him have
The justice to be honoured in his grave.

XXVIII

I think this nation's tears thus poured together,
Better than shouts. I think this funeral

Grander than crownings, though a Pope bless all.

165

I think this grave stronger than thrones. But whether
The crowned Napoleon or the buried clay
Be worthier, I discern not: angels may.

E

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

“Φεῦ, φεῦ, τί προσδέρκεσθέ μ' ὄμμασιν, τέκνα;” – Medea.

I

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west-
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do

II

you question the
young children in the sorrow
Why their tears are falling so?

The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago;

The old tree is leafless in the forest,
The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

5

ΙΟ

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20

III

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy;

"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary,
Our young feet," they say, "are very weak;
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-
Our grave-rest is very far to seek:

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,

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30

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, 35 And the graves are for the old.

IV

"True," say the children, "it may happen

That we die before our time:

Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.

We looked into the pit prepared to take her:
Was no room for any work in the close clay!
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'

If

you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries;

Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes:
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud by the kirk-chime.

It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time."

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