e pup whimpered, but Hugh
never woke.
A SOLDIER'S MIRACLE
'Twas when we learnt we could be beat;
Our star misled us, and' we strayed.
Elsewhere the host was in retreat;
We were a guideless lost brigade.
We stumbled on a town in doubt,
To halt and sup we were full fain,
The man that held the chart cried out,
"'Tis Vaucouleurs in old Lorraine."
In Vaucouleurs we will not doubt,
For here, when need was sore, Saint Jane
Arose, and girt herself to rout
The foes that troubled her Lorraine.
So here we feast in faith to-night,
To-morrow we'll rejoin the host
Drink, drink! the wine is pure and bright,
And Jane our maiden is the toast.
But I, that faced the window, caught
A passing cloud, a foreign plume,
A Prussian helmet; and the thought
Of peril chilled the tavern room.
We rose, we glared through twilight panes,
We muttered curses bosom-deep;
A tell-tale gallop scared the lanes,
We grudged to spoil our comrades' sleep.
Then louder than the Uhlan's hoof
Fell storm from sky and flood on banks,
September's passion smote the roof;
We blest it, and to Jane gave thanks.
Betwixt us and that Uhlan's mates
A bridgless river strongly flowed.
A sign was shown that checked the fates,
And on that storm our maiden rode.
A BALLAD FOR A BOY
When George the Third was reigning a hundred
years ago,
He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.
"You're not afraid of shot," said he, "you're not
afraid of wreck,
So cruise about the west of France in the frigate
called _Quebec_.
Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty
years ago
King George the Second sent a man called General
Wolfe, you know,
To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec,
As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on
the deck.
If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can
beat them now.
Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.
But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name,
And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you
shall do the same."
Then Farmer said, "I'll try, sir," and Farmer bowed
so low
That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow.
George gave him his commission, and that it might be
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