Poems Every Child Should Know Part 46

He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

JOHN KEATS.

HERVe RIEL.

"Herve Riel" (by Robert Browning, 1812-89) is a poem for older boys.

Here is a hero who does a great deed simply as a part of his day's work. He puts no value on what he has done, because he could have done no other way.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 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 St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet in view.

'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 harbour, take us quick--or, quicker still, Here's the English can and will!"

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board: "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pa.s.s?"

laughed they; "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the pa.s.sage scarred and scored, Shall the _Formidable_ here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons.

And with flow at full beside?

Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.

Reach the mooring! Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was called a council straight; Brief and bitter the debate: "Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow 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 Shove ash.o.r.e, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!

France must undergo her fate.

"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, Herve Riel, the Croisiekese.

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve 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 Greve where the river disembogues?

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 anch.o.r.ed fast at the foot of Solidor.

Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!

Only let me lead the line, Have the biggest ship to steer, Get this _Formidable_ clear, Make the others follow mine, And I lead them, most and least, by a pa.s.sage I know well, Right to Solidor past Greve, And there lay them safe and sound; And if one ship misbehave, --Keel so much as grate the ground, Why, I've nothing but my life,--here's my head!" cries Herve 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 G.o.d's grace!

See the n.o.ble fellow's face As the big ship, with a bound, Clears the entry like a hound, Keeps the pa.s.sage 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 harboured to the last, And just as Herve 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 Greve.

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!

Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for h.e.l.l!

Let France, let France's King Thank the man that did the thing!"

What a shout, and all one word, "Herve 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 Damfreville."

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 'tis ask and have, I may-- Since the others go ash.o.r.e-- 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.

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 Herve Riel.

So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse!

In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE PROBLEM.

"The Problem" (by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-80) is quoted from one end of the world to the other. Emerson teaches one lesson above all others, that each soul must work out for itself its latent force, its own individual expression, and that with a "sad sincerity." "The bishop of the soul" can do no more.

I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles: Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,-- The canticles of love and woe: The hand that rounded Peter's dome And groined the aisles of Christian Rome Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from G.o.d he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Knowst thou what wove yon woodbird's nest Of leaves and feathers from her breast?

Or how the fish outbuilt her sh.e.l.l, Painting with morn each annual cell?

Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads?

Such and so grew these holy piles, While love and terror laid the tiles.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For out of Thought's interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air; And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the gra.s.s; Art might obey, but not surpa.s.s.

The pa.s.sive Master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.

Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires.

The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold.

Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind.

One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost.

I know what say the fathers wise,-- The Book itself before me lies, Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.