Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.

IV

Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

V

How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,

And could not, so it broke your heart?
You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

VI

And this-why, he was red in vain,
Or black,-poor fellow that is blue!

What fancy was it, turned your brain?

Oh, women were the prize for you! Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill-luck gets just

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:

It 's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

HERVÉ RIEL

I

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninetytwo,

Did the English fight the French,-woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the

blue,

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks
pursue,

Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the
Rance,

With the English fleet in view.

II

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in
full chase;

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship,
Damfreville;

Close on him fled, great and small,

Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signalled to the place

"Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick-or, quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!"

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III

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;

"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they:

"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,

Shall the 'Formidable' here with her twelve and eighty

guns

Think to make the river-mouth by the single nar

row way,

Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty

tons,

And with flow at full beside?

Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring? Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and

bow,

For a prize to Plymouth Sound?
Better run the ships aground!"
(Ended Damfreville his speech).
"Not a minute more to wait!
Let the Captains all and each

30

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the

beach!

France must undergo her fate.

V

"Give the word!" But no such word

Was ever spoke or heard;

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these

-A Captain? A Lieutenant? A Mate-first, second,

third?

No such man of mark, and meet

With his betters to compete!

But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,

A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.

VI

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cried
Hervé Riel:

"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards,

fools, or rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell

On my fingers every bank; every shallow, every swell 'Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river dis

embogues?

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.

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