Axis & Allies - damowords

Downfall!
The poetʹs task to glorify the page
With stories richer than the Golden Fleece,
We stand upon the threshfold of an age
When doves of peace are chirping for release;
The mind bewitchʹd
By warfare yet to come,
The old swordʹs pibrochs pitchʹd to thundʹrous battledrum.
As Napoleon heard the strain
Notes round his soul were wreathing,
Now stood upon the Trojan plain
When demi‐gods were breathing,
Hot blood pulsed thro his templeʹs vein,
Angry, proud & seething ‐
As Ishtar brings empire she brings the fall,
Three long hurrahs huzzahʹd by one & all.
At the mercy of the victor
As the Sinean Kings,
Montezuma & Mombaza,
Gem‐crusted Moghul rings;
An emperor forced to flutter with all the schmetterlings.
Plymouth
August
1815
Death of Napoleon
Stranded on an unhealthy, sea‐girt isle,
The arch‐felon of Europe stands alone,
Bored of his garden, whiling every while
With white sea‐foam & smooth, wide skipping‐stone;
That pain again!
His belly seems aflame!
Poison in every vein he screams his doctorʹs name!
He woke up in a fevʹrish state,
Heard wailing in the ocean,
Tempest thunders without abate,
Soul pouring out emotion,
ʺMore than Alexander the Great
Commanding devotion!ʺ
Til settlʹd by the war‐song of the sea
He drifted, whispering, ʺWhere is Grouchyʺ
& in his final dream he saw
Happy Italians,
The Kentish shore, long days of war,
Men, horses, flags & guns,
Then dies & joins his golden soldiers shouldering weapons.
Saint Helena
1821