Journeys Through Bookland Volume Viii Part 22

Once, amid his sufferings, Nelson had expressed a wish that he were dead; but immediately the spirit subdued the pains of death, and he wished to live a little longer; doubtless that he might hear the completion of the victory which he had seen so gloriously begun. That consolation--that joy--that triumph was afforded him. He lived to know that the victory was decisive; and the last guns which were fired at the flying enemy were heard a minute or two before he expired.

The total British loss in the battle of Trafalgar amounted to 1,587.

Twenty of the enemy struck,--unhappily the fleet did not anchor, as Nelson, almost with his dying breath, had enjoined,--a gale came on from the southwest; some of the prizes went down, some went on sh.o.r.e; one effected its escape into Cadiz; others were destroyed; four only were saved, and those by the greatest exertions. The wounded Spaniards were sent ash.o.r.e, an a.s.surance being given that they should not serve till regularly exchanged; and the Spaniards, with a generous feeling, which would not, perhaps, have been found in any other people, offered the use of their hospitals for our wounded, pledging the honour of Spain that they should be carefully attended there. When the storm after the action drove some of the prizes upon the coast, they declared that the English, who were thus thrown into their hands, should not be considered as prisoners of war; and the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds to their shipwrecked enemies.

It is almost superfluous to add that all the honors which a grateful country could bestow were heaped upon the memory of Nelson. A public funeral was decreed, and a public monument. Statues and monuments also were voted by most of our princ.i.p.al cities. The leaden coffin, in which he was brought home, was cut in pieces, which were distributed as relics of Saint Nelson,--so the gunner of the _Victory_ called them,--and when, at his interment, his flag was about to be lowered into the grave, the sailors who had a.s.sisted at the ceremony, with one accord rent it in pieces, that each might preserve a fragment while he lived.

The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero--the greatest of our own, and of all former times--was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the Battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end; the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our sh.o.r.es could again be contemplated.

CASABIANCA

_By_ FELICIA HEMANS

NOTE.--Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the Admiral of the _Orient_, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire and all the guns had been abandoned, and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood.

A proud though childlike form.

The flames rolled on; he would not go Without his father's word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud, "Say, father, say, If yet my task be done?"

He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried, "If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath, And in his waving hair, And looked from that lone post of death In still yet brave despair;

And shouted but once more aloud, "My father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendor wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above the gallant child, Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound; The boy,--Oh! where was _he_?

Ask of the winds, that far around With fragments strewed the sea,--

With shroud and mast and pennon fair, That well had borne their part,-- But the n.o.blest thing that perished there Was that young, faithful heart.

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST

_By_ ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Little Ellie sits alone 'Mid the beeches of a meadow, By a stream-side on the gra.s.s, And the trees are showering down Doubles of their leaves in shadow, On her shining hair and face.

She has thrown her bonnet by, And her feet she has been dipping In the shallow water's flow; Now she holds them nakedly In her hands, all sleek and dripping, While she rocketh to and fro.

Little Ellie sits alone, And the smile she softly uses Fills the silence like a speech, While she thinks what shall be done, And the sweetest pleasure chooses For her future within reach.

Little Ellie in her smile Chooses, "I will have a lover, Riding on a steed of steeds: He shall love me without guile, And to _him_ I will discover The swan's nest among the reeds.

"And the steed shall be red roan, And the lover shall be n.o.ble, With an eye that takes the breath.

And the lute[316-1] he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble, As his sword strikes men to death.

"And the steed it shall be shod All in silver, housed in azure;[316-2]

And the mane shall swim the wind; And the hoofs along the sod Shall flash onward, and keep measure, Till the shepherds look behind.

"But my lover will not prize All the glory that he rides in, When he gazes in my face.

He will say, 'O Love, thine eyes Build the shrine my soul abides in, And I kneel here for thy grace!'

"Then, aye, then shall he kneel low, With the red-roan steed anear him, Which shall seem to understand, Till I answer, 'Rise and go!

For the world must love and fear him Whom I gift with heart and hand.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE ELLIE SITS ALONE]

"Then he will arise so pale, I shall feel my own lips tremble With a _yes_ I must not say: Nathless[317-3] maiden-brave, 'Farewell,'

I will utter, and dissemble-- 'Light to-morrow with to-day!'

"Then he'll ride among the hills To the wide world past the river, There to put away all wrong, To make straight distorted wills, And to empty the broad quiver Which the wicked bear along.

"Three times shall a young foot page Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, And kneel down beside my feet: 'Lo! my master sends this gage,[317-4]

Lady, for thy pity's counting.

What wilt thou exchange for it?'

"And the first time I will send A white rosebud for a guerdon--[317-5]

And the second time, a glove; But the third time--I may bend From my pride, and answer--'Pardon, If he comes to take my love.'

"Then the young foot page will run-- Then my lover will ride faster, Till he kneeleth at my knee: 'I am a duke's eldest son!

Thousand serfs do call me master,-- But, O Love, I love but _thee_!'"...

Little Ellie, with her smile Not yet ended, rose up gayly, Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, And went homeward, round a mile, Just to see, as she did daily, What more eggs were with the two.

Pushing through the elm-tree copse, Winding up the stream, light-hearted, Where the osier pathway leads, Past the boughs she stoops, and stops.

Lo! the wild swan had deserted, And a rat had gnawed the reeds!

Ellie went home sad and slow.

If she found the lover ever, With his red-roan steed of steeds, Sooth I know not; but I know She could never show him--never, That swan's nest among the reeds.

Mrs. Browning tells us very little of Ellie directly, yet she leaves us with a charming picture of an innocent, imaginative, romantic child. Ellie has been reading or listening to tales of knight-errantry, and her mind is full of them, so that the "sweetest pleasure ... for her future" is a lover riding straight out of one of the romances. That she is only a child, with a child's ideas, we may see from the fact that she can think, in her simplicity, of no greater reward for her n.o.ble lover than a sight of the swan's nest among the reeds, of which she alone knows.