So, the storm subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave Hearts that bled are stauched 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, IX 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, 100% Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return! 10 See, 't is myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks! Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed, Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia has come! Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria - but the flower of 20 Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by? Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink? Athens, 40 except for that sparkle, -thy name, I had mouldered to ash! That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back, - Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile! Yet "O gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old? Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me! Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least, Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!' so "Say Pan saith: Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!"" (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear - Fennel I grasped it a-tremble with dew whatever it bode) "While, as for thee" But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew. Till in he broke: " Rejoice, we conquer!" earth no more, the air Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge! Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare! |
