Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader, Lannes,
Waver at yonder wall,"

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Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy:

You hardly could suspect

(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

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Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace

We've got you Ratisbon!

The Marshal's in the market-place,

And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans

Where I, to heart's desire,

Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently

Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle's eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes;

"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride

Touched to the quick, he said:

"I'm killed, sire!" And his chief beside,

Smiling the boy fell dead.

vans: wings.

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SHAKESPEARE AND QUEEN ELIZABETH

SIDNEY LANIER

SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881) was an American poet and prose writer whose books are growing in popular favor. He was born in Macon, Georgia, educated in Oglethorpe College, served as a private through the Civil War, contracted consumption from the 5 exposed life of a soldier, and, after the war, bravely held death at bay until he had accomplished a fair measure of literary work.

In addition to his artistically constructed and highly musical poems, he lectured at Johns Hopkins University, wrote Tiger Lilies (a novel), The Science of English Verse, The Development of 10 the English Novel, The Boy's King Arthur, The Boy's Percy, The Boy's Mabinogion, and two large volumes entitled Shakespeare and His Forerunners.

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For all this, one now sees clearly that he was a poet, and bent upon no middle flight. - EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

Without more ado, then, fancy that on the night of Friday, July 8, in the year 1575, about twelve o'clock, when all the good burgesses in Stratford were comfortably asleep, the family of John Shakespeare, residing in a double-tenement house in 20 Henley Street, were awakened by a furious knocking at the front door.

The eldest son of the family, then only a couple of months past eleven years of age, was the first to hear the noise. He was, indeed, always a light 25 sleeper, as if Destiny intended he should lose as

little as possible of the world which he was afterwards to weave into his poems. And so, hastily springing from his bed, he knocked at his father's door, and passed quickly down the steps, and was in the act of unbarring the front door when his 5 father called to him: "Hold, William! wouldst thou unbar the door to every knock, like a dicing house? Let him thunder; perhaps it is some gallant, or drunken roisterer. I'll speak him from the window." Hereupon John Shakespeare thrust his 10 head from the window of a low chamber in the second story, which projected over the lower part of the house, at the same time calling out, "Who is this below there that beats honest folk out of bed in the midnight?"

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"Marry, one that wishes he was where ye have just come from," replied a voice from the street, where the family could dimly perceive a horseman who had dismounted and was holding the bridle of his horse with one hand while he banged the door 20 with his riding whip in the other. "Open your door, Master Shakespeare; here is a great ado as far off as Killingworth" - which was the common pronunciation of Kenilworth in those days" and Ichington, and there is no man but thee can mend 25 it; to wit, the Queen, God save her Grace, is to

be at Killingworth to-morrow, and my lord of Leicester hath had in a great army of new serving men and folk of all degree for his pageants and his shows, and there is more men than gloves, and 5 the usher must needs have his gloves, and even he that is to play the salvage man in the woods before the Queen must have his gloves before her Grace's grace, and thou art to send by me straightway all the gloves in thy shop to Killingworth, or else, by 10 the usher's moaning, the heaven and the earth will clap together and Domesday come a thousand years afore his time, for lack of some dozen pieces of leather, and I would the usher were doomed to eat 'em, for sending me on a fool's errand at night."

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But John Shakespeare had by this time hurriedly descended and opened his door, whereupon the servant for they recognized him as such by his blue livery entered and finished his story. "And again, Master Shakespeare, and mind thou do this, 20 or we will have two Domesdays together, grinding us like the upper and nether millstone. My lord of Leicester's gentleman hath come flying to me as I rode out of Killingworth Great Gate, and saith: My lord of Leicester to-morrow at Long Ichington 25 shall feast the Queen, and they will hunt from there to Killingworth in the afternoon, and my