22 MARCH 1873, Page 14

POETRY.

LOUIS NAPOLEON. He had it all,—the Empire and the Rule ; France voted herself fetters at his feet ; He was the " Grand Monarque " by plebiscite, A Despot of the Democratic school, Who of the sceptre made a workman's tool, And held loud levees in the camp and street, Gaul's tameless Eagle screaming round his seat O'er moody Kings remembering, at his stool.

And then an insolent word, and all was lost : Flashed the stored storm, and sword and sceptre broke ; Power, Pleasure, Pride vanished in battle-smoke ; And there was seen upon a foreign coast A weak old man, beneath Pain's iron yoke, Following that mightier discrowniel Ghost. J. S. D.