NAPOLEON
(1821)

This ode of Shelley's, written immediately after Napoleon's death, anticipates with singular accuracy the verdict of modern history upon Napoleon, as a vast natural force, fraught alike with good and with evil, sweeping ‘like a rushing mighty wind through the effete monarchies of Western Europe. [See Lord Rosebery's 'Napoleon: the Last Phase', ad finem.]

WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?

Art thou not overbold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old

In the light of thy morning mirth,

The last of the flock of the starry fold?

Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

5

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?
What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled—
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

'Who has known me of old,' replied Earth,
'Or who has my story told?
It is thou who art overbold.'

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, 'To my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled,
And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

ΙΟ

15

20

'Still alive and still bold,' shouted Earth,
'I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me' ten thousandfold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm.

I feed on whom I fed.

'Ay, alive and still bold,' muttered Earth, 'Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.' 40

P. B. SHELLEY.

BATTLE SONG

(1832)

The struggle which this poem invokes is the legislative campaign in which Parliament was engaged after the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. Within three years it carried the act for the emancipation of slaves, a reform of the Poor Law, and the Municipal Corporations Reform Act.

DAY, like our souls, is fiercely dark;
What then? 'Tis day!

We sleep no more; the cock crows-hark!
To arms! away!

They come! they come! the knell is rung
Of us or them;

Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung
Of gold and gem.

5

What collar'd hound of lawless sway,

To famine dear

What pension'd slave of Attila,
Leads in the rear?

Come they from Scythian wilds afar,
Our blood to spill?

Wear they the livery of the Czar?
They do his will.

Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulet,

Nor plume, nor torse

No splendour gilds, all sternly met,
Our foot and horse.

But, dark and still, we inly glow,

Condensed in ire!

Strike, tawdry slaves, and ye shall know
Our gloom is fire.

In vain your pomp, ye evil powers,
Insults the land;

Wrongs, vengeance, and the Cause are ours,
And God's right hand!

Madmen! they trample into snakes
The wormy clod!

Like fire, beneath their feet awakes

The sword of God!

Behind, before, above, below,

They rouse the brave;

Where'er they go, they make a foe,
Or find a grave.

11. Attila.

E. ELLIOTT.

King of the Huns, 'the Scourge of God,' in 450

attacked and laid waste Northern Italy.

18. torse] breast-plate.

O LORD, HOW LONG

(1840)

Ebenezer Elliott, the poet of the Anti-Corn Law League, thought that opposition to the bread-taxes and amelioration inthe conditions of labour were the most important aims for the working classes of the first half of the nineteenth century. He lived just long enough to see them abolished in 1846.

UP, widow, up, and swing the fly;
Or push the grating file!
Our bread is tax'd, and rents are high,
That wolves may burst with bile.
Sire of the hopeless! canst thou sleep?
Up, up, and toil for ghouls,

Who drink our tears, but never weep,
And soulless eat our souls!

Child, what hast thou with sleep to do?
Awake, and dry thine eyes!

Thy tiny hands must labour too;
Our bread is tax'd-arise!

Arise, and toil long hours twice seven,

For pennies two or three;

5

ΙΟ

Thy woes make angels weep in Heaven,—
But England still is free.

15

Up, weary man, of eighty-five,

And toil in hopeless woe!

Our bread is tax'd, our rivals thrive,

Our gods will have it so.

Yet God is undethron'd on high,

And undethroned will be:

Father of all! hear Thou our cry,
And England shall be free.

20

Methinks, thy nation-wedding waves
Upbraid us as they flow;

Thy winds, disdaining fetter'd slaves,
Reproach us as they blow;
Methinks thy bolts are waxing hot,
Thy clouds have voices too;
'Father!' they cry, hast thou forgot
Land-butcher'd Peterloo ?'

Oh, Vengeance !—No, forgive, forgive!
'Tis frailty still that errs:

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30

Forgive?-Revenge! Shall murderers live? 35

Christ bless'd His murderers.

Father, we only ask our own;

We say, 'Be commerce free;

Let barter have his mutton-bone,

Let toil be liberty.'

They smite in vain who smite with swords,

And scourge with volleyed fire;

Our weapon is the whip of words,
And truth's all-teaching ire;

The blow it gives, the wound it makes,
Life yet unborn shall see,

And shake it, like a whip of snakes,
At unborn villainy.

E. ELLIOTT.

40

45

1. Up, widow, up. Women at this time were employed in factories both night and day. Lord Shaftesbury's Act of 1844 limited their hours to twelve, and those of children under thirteen to six per day.

the fly. The shuttle, then thrown to and fro by hand.

32. Peterloo. The 'Manchester Massacre' of 1819, when a meeting of reformers in St. Peter's fields was broken up by the military with unnecessary violence.