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, here's my head!" cries Hervé Riel. VII Not a minute more to wait. "Steer us in, then, small and great! Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its 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 sea's profound! See, safe through 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 harbored to the last, And just as Hervé Riel hollas "Anchor!"-sure as fate, Up the English come-too late! VIII So, the storm subsides to calm: On the heights 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, In the frank blue Breton eyes, IX Then said Damfreville, "My friend, Though I find the speaking hard. 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 Dam freville." X Then a beam of fun outbroke On the bearded mouth that spoke, 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. ΧΙ 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, honor France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore! EMERSON WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS His I think it was Emerson himself who opened his door to me, for I have a vision of the fine old man standing tall on his threshold, with the card in his hand, and looking from it to me with a vague serenity, while I waited a moment on the door-step below him. He must then have been about sixty, but I remember nothing of age in his aspect, though I have called him an old man. hair, I am sure, was still entirely dark, and his face had a kind of marble youthfulness, chiselled to a delicate intelligence by the highest and noblest thinking that any man has done. There was a strange charm in Emerson's eye, which I felt then and always, something like that I saw in Lincoln's, but shyer, but sweeter and less sad. His smile was the very sweetest I have ever beheld, and the contour of the mask and the line of the profile were in keeping with this incomparable sweetness of the mouth, at once grave and quaint, though quaint is not quite the word for it either, but subtly, not unkindly arch, which again is not the word. |