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.

Not a minute more to wait.

"Steer us in, then, small and great!

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" cried 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 through 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 hollas "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! Outburst all with one accord,

"This is Paradise for Hell!

Let France, let France's King

Thank the man that did the thing!"

K. N. E.-35.

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 Damfre

ville."

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

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 Bel'e

Aurore.

-Robert Browning.

CLXXIV. THE BELLS.

HEAR the sledges with the bells

Silver bells

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding-bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells,
Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor,
Now-now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,

By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—

Of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

Hear the tolling of the bells—

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people-ah, the people—

They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells-
Of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells,

To the sobbing of the bells;