Themselves in their old gilt, to dazzle anew the globe!

[The scene us curtained by a night-mist.[25]]

SCENE IX

THE WOOD OF BOSSU

[It is midnight. NAPOLEON 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.]

NAPOLEON [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. NAPOLEON'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.

NAPOLEON [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?

NAPOLEON

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