rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You scarcely could suspect--
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace
We've got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart's desire,
Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle's eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes;
"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.

Browning

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it.

Tennyson

BRITISH COLONIAL AND NAVAL POWER

The sagacity of England is in nothing more clearly shown than in the
foresight with which she has provided against the emergency of war. Let
it come when it may, it will not find her unprepared. So thickly are her
colonies and naval stations scattered over the face of the Earth, that
her war-ships can speedily reach every commercial centre on the globe.

There is that great centre of commerce, the Mediterranean Sea. It was a
great centre long ago, when the Phoenician traversed it, and, passing
through the Pillars of Hercules, sped on his way to the distant, and
then savage, Britain. It was a great centre when Rome and Carthage
wrestled in a death-grapple for its possession. But at the present day
England is as much at home on the Mediterranean as if it were one of her
own Canadian lakes.

Nor is it simply the number of the British colonies, or the evenness
with which they are distributed, that challenges our admiration. The
positions which these colonies occupy, and their natural military
strength, are quite as important facts. There is not a sea or a gulf in
the world, which has any real commer