Ballads of Bravery 3

Ballads of Bravery 3

 HERVÉ RIEL.

 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,

Did the English fight the French,--woe to France!

And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,

Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,

With the English fleet in view.

’Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase,

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville.

Close on him fled, great and small,

Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signalled to the place,

“Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick,--or, quicker still,

Here’s the English can and will!”

 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board.

“Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?”

laughed they.

“Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred

and scored,

Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns,

Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,

Trust to enter where ’tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,

And with flow at full beside?

Now ’tis slackest ebb of tide.

Reach the mooring? Rather say,

While rock stands or water runs,

Not a ship will leave the bay!”

 

Then was called a council straight;

Brief and bitter the debate:

“Here’s the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow

All that’s left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,

For a prize to Plymouth Sound?

Better run the ships aground!”

(Ended Damfreville his speech.)

“Not a minute more to wait!

Let the captains all and each

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!

France must undergo her fate.”

 

“Give the word!” But no such word

Was ever spoke or heard;

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these,

A captain? A lieutenant? A mate,--first, second, third?

No such man of mark, and meet

With his betters to compete,

But a simple Breton sailor, pressed by Tourville for the fleet,--

A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel, the Croisickese.

 

[Illustration]

 

And “What mockery or malice have we here?” cries Hervé Riel.

“Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell

On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell

’Twixt the offing here and Greve, where the river disembogues?

Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying’s for?

Morn and eve, night and day,

Have I piloted your bay,

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.

Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse than

fifty Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me, there’s a way!

Only let me lead the line,

Have the biggest ship to steer,

Get this Formidable clear,

Make the others follow mine,

And I lead them most and least by a passage I know well,

Right to Solidor, past Greve,

And there lay them safe and sound;

And if one ship misbehave,

Keel so much as grate the ground,--

Why, I’ve nothing but my life; here’s my head!” cries Hervé Riel.

 

Not a minute more to wait.

“Steer us in, then, small and great!

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief.

“Captains, give the sailor place!”

He is admiral, in brief.

Still the north-wind, by God’s grace.

See the noble fellow’s face

As the big ship, with a bound,

Clears the entry like a hound,

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 halloos, “Anchor!”--sure as fate,

Up the English come, too late.

 

So the storm subsides to calm;

They see the green trees wave

On the heights o’erlooking Greve.

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 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 stepped in front once more,

Not a symptom of surprise

In the frank blue Breton eyes,

Just the same man as before.

 

[Illustration]

 

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 laughed 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 asked, 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 rack

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!

 

 

THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.

 

The circling century has brought

The day on which our fathers fought

For liberty of deed and thought,

One hundred years ago!

We crown the day with radiant green,

And buds of hope to bloom between,

And stars undimmed, whose heavenly sheen

Lights all the world below.

 

At break of day again we hear

The ringing words of Paul Revere,

And beat of drum and bugle near,

And shots that shake the throne

Of tyranny, across the sea,

And wake the sons of Liberty

To strike for freedom and be free:--

_Our_ king is God alone!

 

“Load well with powder and with ball,

Stand firmly, like a living wall;

But fire not till the foe shall call

A shot from every one,”

Said Parker to his gallant men.

Then Pitcairn dashed across the plain,

Discharged an angry threat, and then

The world heard Lexington!

 

[Illustration]

 

Militia and brave minute-men

Stood side by side upon the plain,

Unsheltered in the storm of rain,

Of fire, and leaden sleet;

But through the gray smoke and the flame,

Star crowned, a white-winged angel came,

To bear aloft the souls of flame

From war’s red winding-sheet!

 

Hancock and Adams glory won

With yeomen whose best work was done

At Concord and at Lexington,

When first they struck the blow.

Long may their children’s children bear

Upon wide shoulders, fit to wear,

The mantles that fell through the air

One hundred years ago!