'Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river

disembogues?

Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?

Morn and eve, night and day,

Have I piloted your bay,

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.

Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!

Only let me lead the line,

Have the biggest ship to steer,

Get this Formidable clear,

Make the others follow mine,

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I

know well,

Right to Solidor past Grève,

And there lay them safe and sound;

And if one ship misbehave,

-Keel so much as grate the ground,

Why, I've nothing but my life,

cries Hervé Riel.

Not a minute more to wait.

'Steer us in, then, small and great!

here's my head!'

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!'

cried his chief.

'Captains, give the sailor place!

He is Admiral, in brief.

Still the north-wind, by God's grace!

See the noble fellow's face,

As the big ship with a bound,

Clears the entry like a hound,

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas profound!

See, safe thro' shoal and rock,

How they follow in a flock,

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,

Not a spar that comes to grief!

The peril, see, is past,

All are harboured to the last,

And just as Hervé Riel hollas 'Anchor!'-sure as

fate

Up the English come, too late!

So, the storm subsides to calm:

They see the green trees wave

On the o'erlooking Grève.

Hearts that bled are stanched with balm.

'Just our rapture to enhance,

Let the English rake the bay,

Gnash their teeth and glare askance,

As they cannonade away!

'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!'

How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance!

Out burst all with one accord,

"This is Paradise for Hell!

Let France, let France's King

Thank the man that did the thing!'

What a shout, and all one word,

'Hervé Riel!'

As he stepped in front once more,
Not a symptom of surprise

In the frank blue Breton eyes,
Just the same man as before.

Then said Damfreville, 'My friend,
I must speak out at the end,
Though I find the speaking hard.
Praise is deeper than the lips:
You have saved the King his ships,
You must name your own reward.
'Faith our sun was near eclipse!
Demand whate'er you will,

France remains your debtor still.

Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.'

Then a beam of fun outbroke

On the bearded mouth that spoke,
As the honest heart laughed through
Those frank eyes of Breton blue:
'Since I needs must say my say,

Since on board the duty's done,

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it

but a run?

Since 'tis ask and have, I may—

Since the others go ashore—

Come! A good whole holiday!

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'

That he asked and that he got,—nothing more.

Name and deed alike are lost:

Not a pillar nor a post

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black

On a single fishing smack,

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack

All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.

Go to Paris: rank on rank

Search the heroes flung pell-mell

On the Louvre, face and flank!

You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.

So, for better and for worse,

Hervé Riel, accept my verse!

In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more

Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife, the Belle Aurore!

Browning.

THE DYING FIREMAN

I AM the mashed fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their débris,

Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,

I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, They have cleared the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake,

Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy, White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their fire-caps,

The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

CI

A SEA-FIGHT

WOULD you hear of an old-time sea-fight?

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.

'Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you (said he), His was the surly English pluck, and there is no

tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lowered eve he came horribly raking us. We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touched,

My captain lashed fast with his own hands.

We had received some eighteen-pound shots under the water,

On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.