StoryTitle("caps", "Ivry") ?>
SubTitle("caps", "A Song of the Huguenots") ?>
aged eleven, do you remember how you studied and
recited "King Henry of Navarre" every poetry hour for a year? It was a
long poem, but you stuck to it to the end. We did not know the meaning
of a certain word, but I found it up in Switzerland. It is the name of
a little town. (1800-59.)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!", "") ?>
PagePoem(180, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hurrah! Hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;", "") ?>
PagePoem(181, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The King is come to marshal us, in all his armour drest,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Down all our line, a deafening shout, \"God save our Lord the King!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks of war,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The fiery Duke is pricking fast across St. André's plain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.", "") ?>
PagePoem(182, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Charge for the golden lilies,—upon them with the lance.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And in they burst, and on they rushed, while like a guiding star,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Amid the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath turned his rein.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "D'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish count is slain.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along our van,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Remember St. Bartholomew!\" was passed from man to man.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But out spake gentle Henry, \"No Frenchman is my foe:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren go.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre?", "") ?>
PagePoem(183, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for France to-day;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But we of the Religion have borne us best in fight;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the good lord of Rosny has ta'en the cornet white.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath ta'en,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of false Lorraine.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Up with it high; unfurl it wide; that all the host may know", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How God hath humbled the proud house which wrought His church such woe.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loudest points of war,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of Navarre.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ho! maidens of Vienna; Ho! matrons of Lucerne;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ho! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearman's souls.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ho! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And mocked the counsel of the wise, the valour of the brave.", "") ?>
PagePoem(184, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Thomas B. Macaulay.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>