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Poem by Bartholomew Simmons
Napoleon’s Last Look
“I shall never forget that morning we made Ushant. I had come on deck at four o’clock to take the morning watch, when to my astonishment I saw the Emperor come out of the cabin at that early hour and make for the poop ladder. Having gained the deck, pointing to the land, he said, ‘Ushant? Cape Ushant?’ I replied, ‘Yes, Sire,’ and withdrew. He then took out a pocket-glass and applied it to his eye, looking eagerly at the land. In this position he remained from five in the morning to nearly midday, without paying any attention to what was passing around him, or speaking to one of his suite, which had been standing behind him for several hours. No wonder he thus gazed; it was the last look of the land of his glory, and I am convinced he felt it as such. What must have been his feelings in these few hours!” — Memoirs of an Aristocrat.
WHAT of the night, ho! Watcher there Upon the armed deck, That holds within its thunderous lair The last of empire’s wreck,— E’en him whose capture now the chain From captive earth shall smite; Ho! rocked upon the moaning main, Watcher, what of the night? “The stars are waning fast, the curl Of morning’s coming breeze Far in the north begins to furl Night’s vapor from the seas. Her every shred of canvas spread, The proud ship plunges free, While bears afar, with stormy head, Cape Ushant on our lee.” At that last word, as trumpet-stirred, Forth in the dawning gray A silent man made to the deck His solitary way. And, leaning o’er the poop, he gazed Till on his straining view That cloudlike speck of land, upraised, Distinct, but slowly grew. Well may he look until his frame Maddens to marble there; He risked Renown’s all-grasping game, Dominion or despair, And lost; and lo! in vapor furled, The last of that loved France, For which his prowess cursed the world, Is dwindling from his glance. He lives, perchance, the past again, From the fierce hour when first On the astounded hearts of men His meteor-presence burst,— When blood-besotted Anarchy Sank quelled amid the roar Of thy far-sweeping musketry, Eventful Thermidor! Again he grasps the victor-crown Marengo’s carnage yields, Or bursts o’er Lodi, beating down Bavaria’s thousand shields; Then, turning from the battle-sod, Assumes the Consul’s palm, Or seizes giant empire’s rod In solemn Notre Dame. And darker thoughts oppress him now,— Her ill-requited love, Whose faith as beauteous as her brow Brought blessings from above, Her trampled heart, his darkening star, The cry of outraged man, And white-lipped Rout and wolfish War, Loud thundering on his van. Rave on, thou far-resounding deep, Whose billows round him roll! Thou ’rt calmness to the storms that sweep This moment o’er his soul. Black chaos swims before him, spread With trophy-shaping bones; The council-strife, the battle-dead, Rent charters, cloven thrones. Yet, proud one! could the loftiest day Of thy transcendent power Match with the soul-compelling sway Which in this dreadful hour Aids thee to hide beneath the show Of calmest lip and eye The hell that wars and works below, The quenchless thirst to die? The white dawn crimsoned into morn, The morning flashed to day, And the sun followed glory-born, Rejoicing on his way, And still o’er ocean’s kindling flood That muser cast his view, While round him awed and silent stood His fate’s devoted few. O for the sulphureous eve of June, When down that Belgian hill His bristling Guards’ superb platoon He led unbroken still! Now would he pause, and quit their side Upon destruction’s marge, Nor kinglike share with desperate pride Their vainly glorious charge? No,—gladly forward he would dash Amid that onset on, Where blazing shot and sabre-crash Pealed o’er his empire gone; There, ’neath his vanquished eagles tost, Should close his grand career, Girt by his heaped and slaughtered host He lived,—for fetters here! Enough,—in noontide’s yellow light Cape Ushant melts away, Even as his kingdom’s shattered might Shall utterly decay, Save when his spirit-shaking story, In years remotely dim, Warms some pale minstrel with its glory To raise the song to him.
Bartholomew Simmons
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