Napoleons EpitaphOnce a man bedazzled earth,He tread a dark red road into a golden skyAn eagle flying far with wide destructive wingsA beacon calling forth creating his own time.But even wings of gold can melt like waxAnd the higher flight the further down to earth,And in the furnace fell the emperors crown,Left a wounded bird tied to the ground. With feathers yearning to renew their flightGrasping at the fiery glory of the stars,Defeated in battle by overwhelming force,But ambition burning forth until the end.In memory he remains victorioushis glory not diminished by his fall,His brightness blighted by blood,But none will forget Napoleon. He rose out of the terror of the night,unto a ravaged world which sought freedom,freedom poisoned by terrorHigh ideas and deaths as high in count.He saw France under a monarchs oppression,He saw France under the guillotine,He saw France weakening surrounded by foes,And he took France and made her the worlds queen.He gave the people back their church,though he saw god but as a tool of man,or a removed being who made the world and left it to man to use god for the worlds management.He gave the people their church but he took the greater crownfor he took the political power of the churchand with it increased his power over the world.He freed those persecuted for religion,In Spain he ended the Inquisition,In his empire he offered rights,For Jews and Muslims both he offered equality.For though he was led by ambition s scepterHe lacked the petty prejudice of lesser menand saw that intolerance was as an insane hurricanean evil force backed neither by morality or his own interest.He saw that religion was a devise of man,He saw it cause division,But also he saw its cling upon the mass,and saw that for many it was a beacon.So he restored the church but took the crownand with his power he lessened persecution,And he followed the church because he ruled its people,Though his true religion was ever fueled ambition.In education, he formed schoolsand created a path to fortune based on merithe saw the value of learningand knew that mind not birth should determine prospects.He made a code of law,He thought it his crowning glory,He saw it as a lasting legacy,a signature imprinted on the sky.Though in it he protected some rights,though he preserved some liberties the revolution had bestowed,Still in it he restored the chains upon some freedoms,For he needed chains to support his soaring flight and to keep his people down below on earth.Emperor he became,Emperor Napoleon, whose gaze transfixed the world,Who soared upon the heavens,and seized the power of the gods.Emperor greater than the pope,He took the crown in his own hands,and on his own headhe placed the gold.He spread his empire far through Europe,His foes saw in him a bloody reaper,a tyrant, a devil, a man who trampled upon themand spread across Europe a bloody harvest of ambition.They saw him sweep like a plague across their lands,They saw the deaths of countless friends and foes,and all this caused by one man,All this by one roaring lion.But at last the icy land of RussiaFroze the spreading fire of his willand in its barren cold he began to fadehis golden light rusted in the frost of an overblown ambition.He faced off all Europe with an indomitable spirit,But one man against the world must in the end fall down,And though he tried to rise back up at Waterloo,Napoleon was defeated.His wings were tattered though they still strove against the wind,His mind excelled all others still but not enough to rise back off the ground.Exiled he fell into the deep sea,His golden crown floating on the path of memory,His voyage passed his wings crashed on the rocks,And thus, at length, died great Napoleon.Katja Stroke-Adolphe