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 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 stepp'd 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 laugh'd 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!

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore !"

That he ask'd, 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

Belle Aurore!

ROBERT BROWNING.

FONTENO Y.

Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column fail'd,

And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain

assail'd,

For town and slope were fill'd with fort and flanking

battery,

And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.

As vainly through De Barri's wood the British soldiers burst,

The French artillery drove them back, diminish'd and dispersed.

The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious

eye,

And order'd up his last reserve, his latest chance to

try;

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals

ride!

And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at even-tide.

Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread, Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head;

Steady they step adown the slope, steady they climb the hill,

Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still,

Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnaceblast,

Through rampart, treuch, and palisade, and bullets showering fast;

And on the open plain above they rose, and kept their

course,

With ready fire and grim resolve that mock'd at

hostile force:

Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grow their ranks,

They break, as breaks the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks.

More idly than the summer flics, French tirailleurs rush round;

As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground;

Bombshell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they march'd and fired

Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur retired.

"Push on, my household cavalry!" King Louis madly cried:

To death they rush, but rude their shock: not unavenged they died.

On through the camp the column trod-King Louis turns his rein:

"Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the Irish troops remain."

And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo, Had not these exiles ready been, fresh, vehement, and

true.

"Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish, there are your Saxon foes!"

The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he

goes.

How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay!

The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day;

The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry;

Their plunder'd homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry;

Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown

Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone.

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere, Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were.

O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands,

"Fix bay'nets!-Charge!" like mountain-storm rush on these fiery bands!

Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow,

Yet, mustering all the strength they have, they make a gallant show.

They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that battle-wind,

Their bayonets the breakers' foam, like rocks the men

behind;

One volley crashes from their line, when through the surging smoke,

With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke.

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza; "Revenge! remember Limerick dash down the

Sacsanach!"