Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

JOHN KEATS.

HERVE RIEL.

"Herve 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.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French--woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase,
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And they signalled to the place,
"Help the winners of a race!
Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick--or, quicker still,
Here's the English can and will!"

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board:
"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?"
laughed they;
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred
and scored,
Shall the _Formidable_ here, with her twelve and eighty guns,
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons.
And with flow at full beside?
Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring! Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was called a council straight;
Brief and bitter the debate:
"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow
All