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!

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'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,
Tho' 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.

95

100

105

110

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,

115

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!

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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,

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130

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 !

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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

PHEIDIPPIDES

χαίρετε, νικῶμενο

FIRST I salute° this soil of the blessed, river and rock! Gods of my birthplace, dæmons and heroes, honor to

all!

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal

in praise

-Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear!

Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your

peer,

5

Now, henceforth and forever, O latest to whom I

upraise

Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!

Present to help, potent to save, Pan-patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return! See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks!

10

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you,

"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed,

Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn

15

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke : breath served but for "Persia has come !

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;

Razed to the ground is Eretria- but Athens, shall Athens sink,

Drop into dust and die the flower of Hellas utterly die,

20

Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How, when? No when? No care for my limbs! there's lightning in all and some

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens - Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond?

25

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,

Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood

Quivering,

the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood:

"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate?

30

Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry

beyond

Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them Ye must'!"

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer

at last!

"Has Persia come, Sparta befriend?

does Athens ask aid, may

Nowise precipitate judgment too weighty the issue at stake!

35

Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the Gods!

Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds

In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take

Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds

to it fast:

That sent a blaze thro' my blood; off, off and away was I back,

Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

Yet "O Gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock

and plain,

Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them

again,

45

"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we

paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim,° the fulsome libation! Too rash

Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!