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.

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.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower

I stood,

And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with

streams and vapors gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

1

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning

hour,

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient

tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;

And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,

With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;

They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders, - mighty Baldwin Bras

de Fer,

Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dam

pierre.

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old; Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;

Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp

and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the

ground;

I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,

And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,

Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold.

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,

Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;

And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat.

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike

of sand,

I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!"

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar

Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I

was aware,

Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined

square.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

HORATIUS.

LARS PORSENA of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it
And named a trysting day,

And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage

Have heard the trumpet's blast.

Shame on the false Etruscan

Who lingers in his home,

But by the yellow Tiber

Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city

The throng stopped up the ways; A fearful sight it was to see

Through two long nights and dayɛ.

To eastward and to westward

Have spread the Tuscan bands; Nor house, nor fence, nor dove-cote In Crustumerium stands.

Verbenna down to Ostia