1814.15
Sonnet
To Napoleon, Returned to Paris, Dec. 1812
[Richard Davenport]
“R. A. Davenport” [1]
The Poetical Register and Repository of Fugitive Poetry, VIII (1814), p. 176

Once more enthron'd amid thy slaves, why lours
    Thy furrow'd brow? Why rolls thy troubled eye,
    While o'er thy cheek in quick succession fly
Alternate red and pale? What grief devours
Thy haughty mind, that thus thy spirit cowers?
    Thou mourn'st not that thy warrior-legions lie
    Livid and stiff beneath the boreal sky;
Nor yet that dreadful glance thy heart o'erpowers,
From orphans, widows, childless parents cast.
    No! flashing on thy mental sight appear
Visions more form'd a soul like thine to blast;
    Baffled AMBITION points the broken spear;
And, trampling in the dust thy trophies past,
    SCORN shows thy laurel wreath now rent and sere.

Notes

1. Richard A. Davenport (1777?-1852), miscellaneous writer who produced much verse and prose including The History of the Bastille and its Principal Captives (1838).