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 !"

cries 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 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!

VIII.

So, the storm subsides to calm :

They see the green trees wave

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,
Not a symptom of surprise
In the frank blue Breton eyes,
Just the same man as before.

IX.

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."

X.

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!"

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

XI.

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 !

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

1868-9.

ROBERT BROWNING.

TO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, IN
HEAVEN.

(FROM BOOK I.)

O LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire,-
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face ;-
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart-
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory-to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die,-

This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand-
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile:
-Never conclude, but raising hand and head
Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn
For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,
Their utmost up and on,—so blessing back

In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,
Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud,
Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!

ASOLANDO.

1889.

ROBERT BROWNING

THE EPILOGUE.

T the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,

AT

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, imprisoned— Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, -Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

What had I on earth to do

With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel

-Being-who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time

Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,-fight on, fare ever

There as here!"