Explore "Louis Napoleon" by Oscar Wilde on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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.