The great Napoleon! and these simple hairs
Are from his head! Behind him I can see
A lurid background, which the cannon tears
Apart, as clouds are by the bolt. And he,
The pigmy reaper of the human grain,
Stands, with no catch or quiver in his breath,
While the dread messengers of sudden death
Belch forth in thunder all their iron rain.
Then one blood ocean slowly covers all,
On which a million faces of the dead
Float, with their eyes to God. The shame-struck years
Fall back in time, with failing footsteps red,
And mix with his their bitter, blood-shot tears,
Alas for glory when these hairs are all.