Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/91

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

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 widows' 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 Arise from Hades, and in lurid flame With shadowy finger trace thine effigy, Who sent them to their audit unanneal'd, And with but that brief space for shrift or prayer, Given at the cannon's mouth? Thou who did'st 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, Why art thou sepulchred in yon far Isle, 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 unmark'd, Even by such slight memento as the hind Carves on his own coarse tomb-stone?