Louis Napoleon
1854.10.16-1900.11.30
Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings
When far away upon a barbarous strand,
In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,
Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!
Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red,
Or ride in state through Paris in the van
Of thy returning legions, but instead
Thy mother France, free and republican,
Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place
The better laurels of a soldier's crown,
That not dishonoured should thy soul go down
To tell the mighty Sire of thy race
That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,
And found it sweeter than his honied bees,
And that the giant wave Democracy
Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.
DayPoems Poem No. 2690
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2690.html">Louis Napoleon by Oscar Wilde</a>
The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
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