Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas 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 harbored to the last, And just as Hervé Riel hollas "Anchor!"-sure as So, the storm subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Grève. 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 coun tenance ! Out burst all with one accord, "Let France, let France's King Thank the man that did the thing!" What a shout, and all one word, As he stepped in front once more, In the frank blue Breton eyes, Then said Damfreville: "My friend, 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, Those frank eyes of Breton blue : - 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 That he asked and that he got, nothing more, 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. THE STORY OF MY BOYHOOD My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, a good fairy had met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life, and I will guide and defend thee," my fate could not have been directed more happily. In the year 1805, there lived in Odense, in a small room, a young married couple. The man was a shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of richly gifted and truly poetical mind. His wife was ignorant of life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the furniture with which he began housekeeping. In this small room, there lay, on the 2d of April, 1805, a living, weeping child, that was myself, Hans Christian Andersen. During the first day of my existence my father is said to have sat by the bed and read aloud, but I cried all the time. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?" my father asked in joke; but I still cried on. Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench and my crib, was the abode of my childhood. The walls were covered with pictures, and over the workbench was a cupboard, containing books and songs. The little kitchen was full of shining plates and metal pans, and by means of a ladder it was possible to go out on the roof. Here there stood a great chest filled with soil, my mother's sole garden, and where she grew her vegetables. I was the only child, and my father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his whole heart. He lived for me. On holidays he made me theaters and pictures, and read to me from the "Arabian Tales." It was only in such moments as these that I can remember to have seen him really cheerful. His parents had been country people in good circumstances, but upon whom many misfortunes had fallen. The cattle had died; the farmhouse had been burned down; and lastly, his father had lost his reason. On this his mother had removed to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind was full of intelligence, apprentice to a shoemaker. It was my poor father's ardent desire to attend the grammar school where he might learn Latin. But he saw his dearest wish unfulfilled, and he never lost the remem brance of it. I recollect that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes, and it was when a youth from the grammar school came to our house and showed us his books and told us what he learned. On Sundays my father went out into the woods and took me with him. He did not talk much when he was out, but sat silently, sunk in deep thought, |