Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon

By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?

Art thou not over-bold?

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?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled?

And canst thou more, 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 over-bold.”

And the lightening 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.

“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 is cold,

And weave into his shame, which like the dead

Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.”