INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.

I.

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:

A mile or so away

On a little mound, Napoléon

Stood on our storming-day;

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,

Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind.

II

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

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

III.

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 thro')

You looked twice ere you saw his breast

Was all but shot in two.

IV.

"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.

V.

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!" 66

Nay," his soldier's pride

Touched to the quick, he said:

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

Smiling the boy fell dead.

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER.

I.

GR-R-R-there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims-
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

II

At the meal we sit together:

Salve tibi! I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt :
What's the Latin name for "parsley"?

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

III.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,

Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we 're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chapsMarked with L. for our initial!

(He, he! There his lily snaps !)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank, With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
-Can't I see his dead eye glow
Bright, as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I, the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp-
In three sips the Arian frustrate;

While he drains his at one gulp!

VI.

Oh, those melons! If he's able
We're to have a feast; so nice!

How go on your flowers? None double? Not one fruit-sort can you spy ?

Strange

And I, too, at such trouble,

Keep 'em close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of Heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying
Off to Hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel,
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe :
If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in 't?

IX.

Or, there's Satan!-one might venture

Pledge one's soul to him,

Such a flaw in the indenture

yet leave

As he 'd miss till, past retrieve,