StoryTitle("caps", "Hervé Riel") ?>
Riel" (by Robert Browning, 1812-89) is a poem for older boys.
Here is a hero who does a great deed simply as a part of his day's work.
He puts no value on what he has done, because he could have
done no other way.
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Did the English fight the French—woe to France!", "") ?>
PagePoem(327, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "With the English fleet in view.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Close on him fled, great and small,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Twenty-two good ships in all;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And they signalled to the place,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Help the winners of a race!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick—or, quicker still,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Here's the English can and will!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "\"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?\" laughed they;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "\"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons.", "") ?>
PagePoem(328, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And with flow at full beside?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Reach the mooring! Rather say,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "While rock stands or water runs,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Not a ship will leave the bay!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Then was called a council straight;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Brief and bitter the debate:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "For a prize to Plymouth Sound?—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Better run the ships aground!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "(Ended Damfreville his speech.)", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Not a minute more to wait!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Let the captains all and each", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "France must undergo her fate.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Give the word!\"—But no such word", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Was ever spoke or heard;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "No such man of mark, and meet", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "With his betters to compete!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A poor coasting pilot he, Hervé Riel, the Croisiekese.", "") ?>
PagePoem(329, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And \"What mockery or malice have we here?\" cries Hervé Riel:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "\"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "'Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Morn and eve, night and day.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Have I piloted your bay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Only let me lead the line,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Have the biggest ship to steer,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Get this Formidable clear,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Make the others follow mine,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Right to Solidor past Grève,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "And there lay them safe and sound;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And if one ship misbehave,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "—Keel so much as grate the ground,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Why, I've nothing but my life,—here's my head!\" cries Hervé Riel.", "") ?>
PagePoem(330, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Not a minute more to wait", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Steer us in, then, small and great!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!\" cried its chief.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Captains, give the sailor place!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "He is Admiral, in brief.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Still the north wind, by God's grace!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "See the noble fellow's face", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "As the big ship, with a bound,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Clears the entry like a hound,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "See, safe through shoal and rock,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "How they follow in a flock,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Not a spar that comes to grief!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "The peril, see, is past,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "All are harboured to the last,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And just as Hervé Riel hollas \"Anchor!\"—sure as fate,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Up the English come—too late!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "So, the storm subsides to calm:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "They see the green trees wave", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "On the heights o'erlooking Grève.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Just our rapture to enhance,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Let the English rake the bay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Gnash their teeth and glare askance", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "As they cannonade away!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!\"", "") ?>
PagePoem(331, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Out burst all with one accord,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "\"This is Paradise for Hell!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Let France, let France's King", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Thank the man that did the thing!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "What a shout, and all one word,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "\"Hervé Riel!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "As he stepped in front once more,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Not a symptom of surprise", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "In the frank blue Breton eyes,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Just the same man as before.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Then said Damfreville, \"My friend,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "I must speak out at the end,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Though I find the speaking hard.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Praise is deeper than the lips:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "You have saved the King his ships,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "You must name your own reward.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "'Faith, our sun was near eclipse!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Demand whate'er you will,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "France remains your debtor still.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Then a beam of fun outbroke", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "On the bearded mouth that spoke,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "As the honest heart laughed through", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Those frank eyes of Breton blue:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "\"Since I needs must say my say,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Since on board the duty's done,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—", "") ?>
PagePoem(332, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Since 'tis ask and have, I may—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Since the others go ashore—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Come! A good whole holiday!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That he asked and that he got,—nothing more.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Name and deed alike are lost:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Not a pillar nor a post", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Not a head in white and black", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "On a single fishing smack,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Go to Paris: rank on rank", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "Search the heroes flung pell-mell", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "On the Louvre, face and flank!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "So, for better and for worse,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Hervé Riel, accept my verse!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Robert Browning.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>