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!
_Browning._
C
THE DYING FIREMAN
I am the mashed fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have cleared the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my
sake,
Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy,
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of
their fire-caps,
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.
_Whitman._
CI
A SEA-FIGHT
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.
'Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you (said he),
His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and
never was, and never will be;
Along the lowered eve he came horribly raking us.
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