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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 harbored to the last,

And just as Hervé Riel holloas "Anchor!" sure as fate Up the English come-too late!

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.

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, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle Aurore!

NOTES.

This poem was written in 1871, and the money (£100) received for it was contributed to the fund for supplying the poor of Paris with food after the siege by the Germans.

Cap la Hogue is a cape on the coast of Holland, about thirty miles from the Hague. The battle referred to was fought May 19, 1692, and resulted in the total defeat of the French fleet by the combined forces of the English and the Dutch. Several of the French ships were captured or destroyed; others escaped, as narrated in the poem.

Saint-Malo is a town and fortification on an island at the mouth of the Rance River, on the coast of France. Its harbor is dry at low tide, but at high tide the water stands forty feet deep.

Tourville was a French admiral and marshal (1642-1701), who afterwards revenged the defeat at La Hogue.

Damfreville, the commander of the French fleet.

Malouins, people of Saint-Malo.

Pressed by Tourville, made to serve against his will.

Croisickese. An inhabitant of Croisic, a small fishing village near the mouth of the Loire. This poem was written in that village.

Grève is a great extent of sandy shallows, laid bare for four or five hours during ebb tide.

Holiday. — Hervé Riel was not quite so modest in his asking as the poet would have us believe. The fact is that he demanded and obtained permission to spend the remainder of his life at home.

LIBERTY AND INDEPENDENCE.

BY RICHARD O'GORMAN.

The Declaration of American Independence was a declaration of war with Great Britain, war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. There were fearful odds against the colonies when they threw down the gauge of battle. On one side was England - strong in the consciousness of wealth and power, strong in the prestige of sovereignty, fully armed and equipped for war, insolent, haughty, scorning even to entertain the idea of possible check or defeat. On the other side, the thirteen colonies, stretching, for the most part, along the seaboard, vulnerable at a hundred points, and open to attack by sea and land, without army, without navy, without money or ammunition or material of war, having for troops only crowds of undisciplined citizens, who had left for a while plow and anvil and hurried to the front with what arms they could lay hands on to fight the veterans of King George, skilled in their terrible trade by long service in European wars.

On the second of July, 1776, the Continental Congress was in session in Philadelphia. There were about fortynine delegates present. That day was a day of gloom. The air was dark and heavy with ill news. Ill news from the North Montgomery had fallen at Quebec, and the expedition against Canada had miserably failed; il news from the South a fleet of British men-of-war had crossed the bar of Charleston, South Carolina; ill news from New York - Lord Howe's ships were riding in the Lower Bay, and the British army of thirty thousand men menaced the city with attack. From all sides came ill tidings. Everywhere doubt and suspicion and despondency. It was a

dark and gloomy time, when even the boldest might well be forgiven for losing heart.

Such was the hour when Congress entered upon the consideration of the great question on which hung the fate of a continent. There were some who clung still to British connection. The king might relent - conciliation was not impossible-a monarchical form of government was dear to them. The past of England was their past, and they were loath to lose it. Then, war was a terrible alternative. They saw the precipice, and they shuddered and started back appalled.

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But on the other side were the men of the hour men of the people, who listened to the voice of the people, and felt the throbbing of the people's great heart. They, too, saw the precipice. Their eyes fathomed all the depth of the black abyss, but they saw beyond the glorious vision of the coming years. They saw countless happy homes stretching far and wide across a continent, wherein should dwell for ages generation after generation of men nurtured in strength and virtue and prosperity by the light and warmth of freedom.

Remember that between the thirteen colonies there were then but few ties. They differed in many things; in race, religion, climate, productions, and habits of thought, as much then as they do now. One grand purpose alone knit their souls together, North to South, Adams of Massachusetts to Jefferson of Virginia - the holy purpose of building up here, for them and their children, a free nation to be the example, the model, the citadel of freedom; or, failing in that, to die and be forgotten, or remembered only with the stain of rebellion on their names.

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