LEIGH HUNT °

THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS°

I

KING FRANCIS was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court; The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their

pride,

And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed :

And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning 5

show,

Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts

below.

II

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;

With wallowing might and stifled roar, they rolled on one another,

Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous 10 smother;

The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through

the air:

Said Francis, then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

III

De Lorge's love o'erheard the king, a beauteous, lively dame,

With smiling lips, and sharp, bright eyes, which always seemed the same;

She thought, "The Count, my lover, is brave as brave can be,

He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me; 5 King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine; I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine."

IV

She dropped her glove, to prove his love; then looked at him, and smiled;

He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild; The leap was quick, return was quick, he soon regained

the place,

10 Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's

face.

"In faith," cried Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose

from where he sat;

"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

A POET'S PRISON

THE doctor then proposed that I should be removed into the prison infirmary; and this proposal was granted. 15 Infirmary had, I confess, an awkward sound, even to my ears. I fancied a room shared with other sick persons, not the best fitted for companions; but the good-natured doctor (his name was Dixon) undeceived me. The in

firmary was divided into four wards, with as many small rooms attached to them. The two upper wards were occupied, but the two on the floor had never been used; and one of these, not very providently (for I had not yet learned to think of money) I turned into a noble room. I 5 papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows I screened with Venetian blinds; and when my book-cases were set up with their busts, and flowers and a pianoforte made their appearance, perhaps there was not a hand- 10 somer room on that side the water. I took a pleasure, when a stranger knocked at the door, to see him come in and stare about him. The surprise on issuing from the Borough, and passing through the avenues of a jail, was dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other 15 such room, except in a fairy tale.

But I possessed another surprise; which was a garden. There was a little yard outside the room, railed off from another belonging to the neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, 20 bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass-plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple-tree, from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. Thomas 25 Moore, who came to see me with Lord Byron, told me he had seen no such heart's-ease. I bought the Parnaso Italiano while in prison, and used often to think of a passage in it, while looking at this miniature piece of horticulture:

"My little garden,

To me thou'rt vineyard, field, and meadow and wood."

BALDI.

30

Here I wrote and read in fine weather, sometimes under an awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet-runners, which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in my arm-chair, and affect to think 5 myself hundreds of miles off.

But my triumph was in issuing forth of a morning. A wicket out of the garden led into the large one belonging to the prison. The latter was only for vegetables; but it contained a cherry tree, which I saw twice in blossom. Io I parcelled out the ground in my imagination into favorite districts. I made a point of dressing myself as if for a long walk; and then, putting on my gloves, and taking my book under my arm, stepped forth, requesting my wife not to wait dinner if I was too late. My eldest little 15 boy, to whom Lamb addressed some charming verses, on the occasion, was my constant companion, and we used to play all sorts of juvenile games together. It was, probably, in dreaming of one of these games (but the words had a more touching effect on my ear) that he exclaimed one 20 night in his sleep, "No; I'm not lost; I'm found.' Neither he nor I were very strong at that time; but I have lived to see him a man of eight and forty; and wherever he is found, a generous hand and a great understanding will be found together.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

JOAN OF ARC°

hills and forests of Judea

WHAT is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that - like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in 5 deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of Kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was 10 read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it 15 was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose to a splendor and a noon-day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was 20 departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domrémy as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal 25