THE WOOD OF BOSSU [It is midnight. NAPOLÉON enters a glade of the wood, a solitary figure on a faded horse. The shadows of the boughs travel over his listless form as he moves along. The horse chooses its own path, comes to a standstill, and feeds. The tramp of BERTRAND, SOULT, DROUOT, and LOBAU’S horses, gone forward in hope to find a way of retreat, is heard receding over the hill.]

NAPOLÉON [to himself, languidly] Here should have been some troops of Gerard’s corps, Left to protect the passage of the convoys, Yet they, too, fail.... I have nothing more to lose, But life! [Flocks of fugitive soldiers pass along the adjoining road without seeing him. NAPOLÉON’S head droops lower and lower as he sits listless in the saddle, and he falls into a fitful sleep. The moon shines upon his face, which is drawn and waxen.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS “Sic diis immortalibus placet,”— “Thus is it pleasing to the immortal gods,” As earthlings used to say. Thus, to this last, The Will in thee has moved thee, Bonaparte, As we say now.

NAPOLÉON [starting] Whose frigid tones are those, Breaking upon my lurid loneliness So brusquely?... Yet, ’tis true, I have ever know That such a Will I passively obeyed! [He drowses again.]

SPIRIT IRONIC Nothing care I for these high-doctrined dreams, And shape the case in quite a common way, So I would ask, Ajaccian Bonaparte, Has all this been worth while?

NAPOLÉON O hideous hour, Why am I stung by spectral questionings? Did not my clouded soul incline to match Those of the corpses yonder, thou should’st rue Thy saying, Fiend, whoever those may’st be!... Why did the death-drops fail to bite me close I took at Fontainebleau? Had I then ceased, This deep had been umplumbed; had they but worked, I had thrown threefold the glow of Hannibal Down History’s dusky lanes!—Is it too late?... Yes. Self-sought death would smoke but damply here! If but a Kremlin cannon-shot had met me My greatness would have stood: I should have scored A vast repute, scarce paralleled in time. As it did not, the fates had served me best If in the thick and thunder of to-day, Like Nelson, Harold, Hector, Cyrus, Saul, I had been shifted from this jail of flesh, To wander as a greatened ghost elsewhere. —Yes, a good death, to have died on yonder field; But never a ball came padding down my way! So, as it is, a miss-mark they will dub me; And yet—I found the crown of France in the mire, And with the point of my prevailing sword I picked it up! But for all this and this I shall be nothing.... To shoulder Christ from out the topmost niche In human fame, as once I fondly felt, Was not for me. I came too late in time To assume the prophet or the demi-god, A part past playing now. My only course To make good showance to posterity Was to implant my line upon the throne. And how shape that, if now extinction nears? Great men are meteors that consume themselves To light the earth. This is my burnt-out hour.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-shine Was in the glory of the Dresden days, When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe Bent at thy footstool.

NAPOLÉON Saving always England’s— Rightly dost say “well-nigh.”—Not England’s,—she Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat, And made herself the means of mangling me!

SPIRIT IRONIC Yea, the dull peoples and the Dynasts both, Those counter-castes not oft adjustable, Interests antagonistic, proud and poor, Have for the nonce been bonded by a wish To overthrow thee. SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Peace. His loaded heart Bears weight enough for one bruised, blistered while!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Worthless these kneadings of thy narrow thought, Napoléon; gone thy opportunity! Such men as thou, who wade across the world To make an epoch, bless, confuse, appal, Are in the elemental ages’ chart Like meanest insects on obscurest leaves, But incidents and grooves of Earth’s unfolding; Or as the brazen rod that stirs the fire Because it must. [The moon sinks, and darkness blots out NAPOLÉON and the scene.]