IV.

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past,

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray :

V.

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,-ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

VI.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! "Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her, "We'll remember at Aix"-for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

VII.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And "Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight!"

VIII.

'How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

IX.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

X.

And all I remember is, friends flocking round

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from
Ghent.

The indefiniteness of the date at the head of this poem will be best explained by the following extract from a letter of Mr. Browning's, published in 1881 in the Boston Literary World :—

"There is no sort of historical foundation about 'Good News From Ghent.' I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable at home."

This poem, therefore, widely known and appreciated as one of the most stirring in the language, may be regarded as a living picture to illustrate the pages-no page in particular-of Motley.

As parallels in American literature, reference may be made to "Paul Revere's Ride," by Longfellow, and "Sheridan's Ride," by T. B. Reade.

ECHETLOS.

HERE is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead and

gone,

Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on, Did the deed and saved the world, since the day was Marathon!

No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought away In his tribe and file: up, back, out, down—was the speararm play:

Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing that day!

But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no spear, As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the rear, Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now here.

Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his wear, Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and bare, Went he ploughing on and on: he pushed with a ploughman's share.

Did the weak mid-line give way, as tunnies on whom the shark

Precipitates his bulk? Did the right-wing halt when, stark Dn his heap of slain, lay stretched Kallimachos Polemarch?

Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need, The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed,

As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede.

But the deed done, battle won,-nowhere to be descried On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh,-look far and wide

From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last bloodplashed sea-side,

Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs thonged and brown,

Shearing and clearing still with the share before which

down

To the dust went Persia's pomp, as he ploughed for Greece, that clown!

How spake the Oracle? "Care for no name at all!

Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ne'er

grows small."

Not the great name! Sing-woe for the great name Miltiadés,
And its end at Paros isle! Woe for Themistokles-
Satrap in Sardis court! Name not the clown like these!

The name, Echetlos, is derived from exérλn, a plough handle. It is not strictly a proper name, but an appellative, meaning "the Holder of the Ploughshare." The story is found in Pausanias, author of the "Itinerary of Greece" (1, 15, 32). Nothing further is necessary in order to understand this little poem and appreciate its rugged strength than familiarity with the battle of Marathon, and some knowledge of Miltiades and Themistocles, the one known as the hero of Marathon, and the other as the hero of Salamis. The lesson of the poem ("The great deed ne'er grows small, not the great name!") is taught in a way not likely to be forgotten. One is reminded of another, who wished to be nameless, heard only as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness!"

The ellipsis in thought between the eighth and ninth stanzas is so easily supplied that it is noticed here only as a simple illustration of what is sometimes the occasion of difficulty (see Introduction, p. iii). It would only have lengthened the poem and weakened it to have inserted a stanza telling in so many words that when the hero could not be found, a message was sent to the Oracle to enquire who it could be.

As a companion to "Echetlos" may be read the stirring poem of "Hervé Riel."

HELEN'S TOWER.

Ελένη ἐπὶ πύργο.

WHO hears of Helen's Tower, may dream perchance,
How the Greek Beauty from the Scean Gate
Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate,
Death-doom'd because of her fair countenance.

Hearts would leap otherwise, at thy advance,
Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate :
Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate,
Yet, unlike hers, was bless'd by every glance.

The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange :

A transitory shame of long ago,

It dies into the sand from which it sprang : But thine, Love's rock-built Tower, shall fear no change : God's self laid stable Earth's foundations so,

When all the morning-stars together sang.

"

The tower is one built by Lord Dufferin, in memory of his mother Helen, Countess of Gifford, on one of his estates in Ireland. The Greek Beauty" is, of course, Helen of Troy, and the reference in the alternative heading is apparently to that fine passage in the third book of the "Iliad," where Helen meets the Trojan chiefs at the Scean Gate (see line 154, which speaks of Helen at the Tower").

On the last two lines, founded of course on the well-known passage in Job (xxxviii. 4-7), compare Dante :

"E il sol montava in su con quelle stelle
Ch'eran con lui, quando l'Amor Divino
Mosse da prima quelle cose belle."

"Aloft the sun ascended with those stars

That with him rose, when Love Divine first moved
Those its fair works."

-Inferno I. 38—40.