Analysis of Napoleon

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



Cannon his name,
Cannon his voice, he came.
Who heard of him heard shaken hills,
An earth at quake, to quiet stamped;
Who looked on him beheld the will of wills,
The driver of wild flocks where lions ramped:
Beheld War's liveries flee him, like lumped grass
Nid-nod to ground beneath the cuffing storm;
While laurelled over his Imperial form,
Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass,
Reverberant notes and long blew volant Fame.
Incarnate Victory, Power manifest,
Infernal or God-given to mankind,
On the quenched volcano's cusp did he take stand,
A conquering army's height above the land,
Which calls that army offspring of its breast,
And sees it mid the starry camps enshrined;
His eye the cannon's flame,
The cannon's cave his mind.

To weld the nation in a name of dread,
And scatter carrion flies off wounds unhealed,
The Necessitated came, as comes from out
Electric ebon lightning's javelin-head,
Threatening agitation in the revealed
Founts of our being; terrible with doubt,
With radiance restorative. At one stride
Athwart the Law he stood for sovereign sway.
That Soliform made featureless beside
His brilliancy who neighboured: vapour they;
Vapour what postured statues barred his tread.
On high in amphitheatre field on field,
Italian, Egyptian, Austrian,
Far heard and of the carnage discord clear,
Bells of his escalading triumphs pealed
In crashes on a choral chant severe,
Heraldic of the authentic Charlemagne,
Globe, sceptre, sword, to enfold, to rule, to smite,
Make unity of the mass,
Coherent or refractory, by his might.

Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass,
Fame blew, and tuned the jangles, bent the knees
Rebellious or submissive; his decrees
Were thunder in those heavens and compelled:
Such as disordered earth, eclipsed of stars,
Endures for sign of Order's calm return,
Whereunto she is vowed; and his wreckage-spars,
His harried ships, old riotous Ocean lifts alight,
Subdued to splendour in his delirant churn.
Glory suffused the accordant, quelled,
By magic of high sovereignty, revolt:
And he, the reader of men, himself unread;
The name of hope, the name of dread;
Bloom of the coming years or blight;
An arm to hurl the bolt
With aim Olympian; bore
Likeness to Godhead. Whither his flashes hied
Hosts fell; what he constructed held rock-fast.
So did earth's abjects deem of him that built and clove.
Torch on imagination, beams he cast,
Whereat they hailed him deified:
If less than an eagle-speeding Jove, than Vulcan more.
Or it might be a Vulcan-Jove,
Europe for smithy, Europe's floor
Lurid with sparks in evanescent showers,
Loud echo-clap of hammers at all hours,
Our skies the reflex of its furnace blast.

On him the long enchained, released
For bride of the miracle day up the midway blue;
She from her heavenly lover fallen to serve for feast
Of rancours and raw hungers; she, the untrue,
Yet pitiable, not despicable, gazed.
Fawning, her body bent, she gazed
With eyes the moonstone portals to her heart:
Eyes magnifying through hysteric tears
This apparition, ghostly for belief;
Demoniac or divine, but sole
Over earth's mightiest written Chief;
Earth's chosen, crowned, unchallengeable upstart:
The trumpet word to awake, transform, renew;
The arbiter of circumstance;
High above limitations, as the spheres.
Nor ever had heroical Romance,
Never ensanguined History's lengthened scroll,
Shown fulminant to shoot the levin dart
Terrific as this man, by whom upraised,
Aggrandized and begemmed, she outstripped her peers;
Like midnight's levying brazier-beacon blazed
Defiant to the world, a rally for her sons,
Day of the darkness; this man's mate; by him,
Cannon his name,
Rescued from vivisectionist and knave,
Her body's dominators and her shame;
By him with the rivers of ranked battalions, brave
Past mortal, girt: a march of swords and guns
Incessant; his proved warriors; loaded dice
He flung on the crested board, where chilly Fears
Behold the Reaper's ground, Death sitting grim,
Awatch for his predestined ones,
Mid shrieks and torrent-hooves; but these,
Inebriate of his inevitable device,
Hail it their hero's wood of lustrous laurel-trees,
Blossom and fruit of fresh Hesperides,
The boiling life-blood in their cheers.
Unequalled since the world was man they pour
A spiky girdle round her; these, her sons,
His cataracts at smooth holiday, soon to roar
Obstruction shattered at his will or whim:
Kind to her ear as quiring Cherubi


Scheme AabcbcdeeDafghhfgag icjikjlmlmikxncnxcdo Dppqxrborqsiiostcuvultvtwwu xyxyzz1 xv2 v1 y3 4 3 2 1 c4 z5 6 avav5 7 4 6 5 p7 pb4 t5 t6 x
Poetic Form
Metre 1011 101111 11111101 11111101 111110111 0101111101 11111111 111101011 1110101001 110101111 1101111 0101001010 0101110111 10101011111 01001010101 111101111 0111010101 110101 010111 1101000111 0101001111 0010011111 010111001 1000100001 11101010011 11000100111 0101111101 11110001 111111 1111111 11010010111 010010100 1101010101 1111101 0101010101 0101001010 11011011111 1100101 01010100111 110101111 110101101 0101010101 0100110001 1101010111 0111110101 111101101 1101110010101 01110111 1001011 1101110001 01010110101 01110111 11010111 111101 1101001 1011101101 1111010111 11111111101 110010111 111110 1111101011101 11110101 1011101 1011001010 11011101110 10101011101 1101101 111010011011 11010010101111 110111001 11000101001 10010111 110110101 11001101 101010101 110111 101100101 110111 01011010101 0100110 101010101 1101101 101100101 11110101 010111111 10110101 11100100101 010101010101 1101011111 1011 101101 0101001 111010110101 1101011101 01011100101 11101011101 010111101 111101 11010111 010110100001 111101110101 1001111 01011011 11011111 0101010101 1101110111 0101011111 11011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 4,304
Words 719
Sentences 17
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 19, 20, 27, 42
Lines Amount 108
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 879
Words per stanza (avg) 179
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

3:41 min read
58

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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