Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/54

 NAPOLEON AT HELENA.

��" The moon of St. Helena shone out, and there we saw the face of Napoleon's sepulchre, characterless, unintcribed."

��And who shall write thine epitaph ? thou man Of mystery and might.

Shall orphan hands

Inscribe it with their fathers' broken swords ? Or the warm trickling of the widow's tear Channel it slowly 'mid the rugged rock, As the keen torture of the water-drop Doth wear the sentenc'd brain ?

Shall countless ghosts Aiise from Hades, and in lurid flame, With shadowy finger, trace thine effigy, Who sent them to their audit unannealed, And with but that brief space for shrift or prayer, Given at the cannon's mouth ?

Thou who didst sit Like eagle on the apex of the globe, And hear the murmur of its conquer'd tribes, As chirp the weak-voic'd nations of the grass, Say, art thou sepulchred in yon far isle,

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