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While little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,

And what they killed each other for."

6

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout,
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out;
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 't was a famous victory.

7

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream, hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;

So, with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

8

"With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother there,

And new-born baby died;

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

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After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

10

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,
And our good Prince Eugene;"
"Why 't was a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he,

"It was a famous victory.

11

"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,

"But 't was a famous victory."

-Robert Southey.

COLUMBUS

To read this inspiring poem with the understanding one must think of the dangers of the voyage-of how the sailors thought the sea was filled with awful monsters, of how they threatened to throw Columbus overboard if he did not take them back home, and of the matchless courage of Columbus. These things are best revealed in the journal or diary kept by Columbus. In it he speaks of himself in the third person, as the Admiral, and he begins every day's journal with the simple statement that that day he sailed westward. Then follows an account of the terrors of the trip; but the next day's journal starts off calmly with the statement that that day he sailed westward. No mutiny of the sailors and no horror of the seas could keep him from sailing westward, for that was his course. Joaquin Miller has caught the spirit of the heroic event and put it into stirring rhyme. Here are four brief extracts from the Columbus journal:

THURSDAY, Sept. 13, 1492.

That day and night, steering their course, which was west, they made 33 leagues. The currents were against them. On this day at the commencement of the night, the needles turned a half point to north-west, and in the morning they turned somewhat more north-west.

[Elsewhere he notes that this variation had never been observed by anyone up to that time, and that it caused much consternation among the sailors.]

SATURDAY, Sept. 15, 1492.

That day and night they made 27 leagues and rather more on their west course; and in the early part of the night there fell from heaven into the sea a marvelous flame of fire, at a distance of about 4 or 5 leagues from them.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 10, 1492.

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Here the crew could stand

He sailed west-southwest. it no longer. They complained of the long voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them as best he could, giving them hopes of the profits they might have. And he added that it was useless to murmur, because he had come in quest of the Indies, and was going to continue until he found them, with God's help.

THURSDAY, October 11, 1492.

He sailed to the west-southwest, but a high sea, higher than hitherto. The Admiral at ten o'clock at night, standing on the castle of the poop, saw a light, but so indistinct that he did not dare to affirm that it was land; yet he called the attention of Pedro Gutierrez, a king's butler, to it and told him that it seemed to be a light, and told him to look; he did so and saw it. After the Admiral said this it was seen once or twice, and it was like a small wax candle that was being hoisted and raised. The Admiral, however,

was quite convinced of the proximity of land.
hours after midnight the land appeared two leagues off.

Two

COLUMBUS

1

Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.

The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.

Brave Adm'r'l, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

2

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say,

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day:

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!""

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak and say.'
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

4

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.

He curls his lip, he lies in wait,

With lifted teeth, as if to bite!

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