eurs derniers moments; pour
eux, apres l'amitie, c'etait la plus belle chose de la terre. Racine fut
l'objet de leur entretien et de leur derriere admiration. Ils voulurent
reciter ses vers; ils choisirent la premiere scene d'Andromaque."--H. DE
LA TOUCHE.

At the place of execution, Chenier struck his forehead with his hand,
and exclaimed--"Pourtant j'avais quelque chose la!"

ANDRE CHENIER.

"Ainsi, triste et captif, ma lyre toutefois S'eveillait."

While earth, with wonderment and fear,
O'er Byron's urn is sadly bending,
And unto Europe's dirge its ear
By Dante's side his shade is lending,

Another shade my voice doth crave,
Who erst, unsung, unwept, unfriended,
In the grim Terror-days descended
From the red scaffold, to the grave.

Love, Peace, the Woodlands, did inspire
That Poet's dreams, sublime and free;
And to that Bard a stranger's lyre
Shall ring--shall ring to him and thee.

The lifted axe--what! cannot slaughter tire?--
For a new victim calls again.
The bard is ready; hark, his pensive lyre
Awakes its last, its parting strain.

At dawn he dies--a mob-feast hot and gory;
But that young Poet's latest breath
What doth it sing? Freedom it sings and glory,
'Twas faithful even unto death.

" * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *

* * "I shall not see ye, days of bliss and freedom:
The scaffold calls. My last hours wearily
Drag on. At dawn I die. The headsman's hand defiling,
By the long hair will lift my head on high
Above the crowd unmoved and smiling.
Farewell! My homeless dust, O friends! shall ne'er repose
In that dear spot where erst we pass'd 'neath sunny bowers
In science and in feasts our careless days, and chose
Beforehand for our urns a place among the flowers.
And if, my friends, in after years
With sadness my remembrance moves ye,
O, grant my dying prayer!--the prayer of one who loves ye:
Weep, loved ones, weep my lot, with still and silent tears;
Beware, or by those drops suspicion ye may waken;
In this bad age, ye know, e'en tears for crimes are taken:
Brother for brother now, alas! must weep no more.

And yet another prayer: you've listen'd o'er and o'er
Unto my idle rhymes,