What! alive and so bold, O Earth? <br />Art thou not overbold? <br />What! leapest thou forth as of old <br />In the light of thy morning mirth, <br />The last of the flock of the starry fold? <br />Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? <br />Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, <br />And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead? <br /> <br />How! is not thy quick heart cold? <br />What spark is alive on thy hearth? <br />How! is not HIS death-knell knolled? <br />And livest THOU still, Mother Earth? <br />Thou wert warming thy fingers old <br />O’er the embers covered and cold <br />Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled-- <br />What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead? <br /> <br />'Who has known me of old,' replied Earth, <br />'Or who has my story told? <br />It is thou who art overbold.' <br />And the lightning of scorn laughed forth <br />As she sung, 'To my bosom I fold <br />All my sons when their knell is knolled, <br />And so with living motion all are fed, <br />And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead. <br /> <br />'Still alive and still bold,' shouted Earth, <br />'I grow bolder and still more bold. <br />The dead fill me ten thousandfold <br />Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth. <br />I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold, <br />Like a frozen chaos uprolled, <br />Till by the spirit of the mighty dead <br />My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed. <br /> <br />'Ay, alive and still bold.' muttered Earth, <br />'Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, <br />In terror and blood and gold, <br />A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. <br />Leave the millions who follow to mould <br />The metal before it be cold; <br />And weave into his shame, which like the dead <br />Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.'<br /><br />Percy Bysshe Shelley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-written-on-hearing-the-news-of-the-death-of-napoleon/
