Napoleon’s Greatness and Failure
And what care we for war and wrack,
How kings and heroes rise and fall?
Look yonder, in his coffin black
There lies the greatest of them all!
To pluck him down, and keep him up,
Died many million human souls;—
‘Tis twelve o’clock and time to sup:
Bid Mary heap the fire with coals.
He captured many thousand guns;
He wrote “The Great” before his name:
And dying, only left his sons
The recollection of his shame.
Though more than half the world was his,
He died without a rood his own;
And borrowed from his enemies
Six foot of ground to lie upon.
He fought a thousand glorious wars,
And more than half the world was his;
And somewhere now, in yonder stars,
Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.
—W. M. Thackeray.
Four Essentials
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow-men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.
—Henry Van Dyke.