Classic Poem

O Corsican! thou of the stern contour
Thy France, how fair was she,
When the broad, ardent sun of Messidor
At length beheld her free!
Like a young mare, unbroke to servitude
Bridle she scorned, and rein;
Still on her hot flanks smoked the recent blood
Of kings on scaffolds Slain.

Proudly her free hoof struck the ancient soil;
Insult by word or deed
She knew not; never hand of outrage vile
Had passed on that wild steed.
Never had her deep flanks the saddle borne
As harness, of the foe;
All virgin she; her heavy mane unshorn
Wantonned in vagrant flow.

The eye of fire, set in her slender head
Shot forth a tameless ray;
Reared up erect, the whole world she dismayed
With her shrill, savage neigh.
Napoleon came; he marked her noble strain,
Her blood, her mettle bold;
Grasping the thick locks of her gypsy mane,
The centaur fixed his hold

Booted he mounted; since he knew full well
She loved the voice of war;
Musket and beating drum and trumpet's swell
And cannon's roar
He gave the wide world for her hunting-ground
His sport was war and toil.
Nor rest, nor night, nor sleep his charger found
and toil;

O'er flesh like clay, gallopped the goaded horse,
Breast-deep in blood and tears;
She trampled generations in her course
For fifteen bloody years.
For fifteen years of carnage, woe and wrath,
O'er prostrate lands she rode,
And still she wore not out the endless path
Her hoof of iron trode

Weary at last, of ever onward hasting,
Finding no resting-place;
Weary of grinding earth, of widely wasting
Like dust, the human race;
With limbs unnerved, staggering at every pace,
Weak as if Death were near,
She prayed the Corsican a moment's grace,
Tyrant! he would not hear.

Closer he pressed her with his vigorous thigh,
In rage her teeth he broke,
Hard drew the bit, stifled the piercing cry
That quickened torture woke.

Once more she rose; at length one battle-day
Prone on the field she fell;
Unhorsed and unhelmed, her haughty rider lay
Crushed on a heap of shell.