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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."

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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 't is 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.

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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!

140

1871.

Robert Browning.

WAR

THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN

It fell about the Lammas tide,

When the muir-men win their hay,
The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
Into England, to drive a prey.

He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,
With them the Lindesays, light and gay;
But the Jardines wald not with him ride,
And they rue it to this day.

And he has burned the dales of Tyne,
And part of Bamb’rough shire;

And three good towers on Reidswire felis,

He left them all on fire.

And he marched up to Newcastle,

And rode it round about;

“O wha's the lord of this castle,
Or wha's the lady o't?"

But up spake proud Lord Percy, then,
And O but he spake hie!

"I am the lord of this castle,
My wife's the lady gay."

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