No More Learning

Oh, the brutes,
To mass their fire upon a woman's head! "

* * * * *

Then on the height that overlooked the plain,
Jean Chouan sprang, and stood against the sky,
Fearless and proud, superb and motionless,
And cried, "I am Jean Chouan! " The French troops
Gazed for a moment in astonishment
At his tall figure. "Yes, it is the chief! "
They said to one another, as they turned
Their guns upon him. "Save yourself! " he cried,
"My sister, save yourself! " as, mad with fright,
The woman stumbled onward. Like a pine
Too strongly rooted in the rock to bend
Or break beneath the fury of the storm,
He towered amid the hurricane of death
That roared and flamed around him. "I will wait
Until you gain the forest! " he exclaimed.
The woman hastened. Over the hill she crept,
And staggered down the valley. "Is she safe? "
Jean Chouan shouted, as a bullet passed
Right through his body.
Standing still erect,
He waited, with a smile upon his lips,
The answer. When some voices in the wood
Cried, "Jeanne is safe. Return! " Jean Chouan said,
"Ave Maria! " and then fell down dead.


_Civil War_

"Kill him! " the mob yelled. "Kill him! " as they surged
In fury round their prisoner. Unmoved
And unafraid he stood: a constable
Of Paris, captured by the Communards.
His hands were black with gunpowder; his clothes
Were red with blood. A simple, fearless man,
Charged with the task of carrying out the law,
He gave no quarter, and he asked for none.
All the day he had fought against the mob
That swept with sword and flame along the streets
Of Paris, while the German conqueror
Battened on France. A woman sprang at him,
And shrieked, "You have been killing us! " "That's true,"
The man replied. "Come, shoot him here!