The Indianapolis Leader

HENRY OF NAVARRE BEFORE PARIS.

[Sixteenth Century.]

BY NORA PERRY.

Down upon the leaguered town
The fields were bare, the meadows brown,
With forty thousand men he rode;
The starving cattle faintly lowed.

But conquering hero he rode down—
As if to hawk and bells he rode—
While fields were bare and meadows brown,
The starving cattle faintly lowed.

They pitched their tents along the road,
And just without the leaguered town
Or in the fields or meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed.

Day after day he laughing rode
Day after day they stormed the town;
Across the fields and meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed.

One day from out the leaguered town
There faltered forth along the road.
And by the fields and meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed,

A wretched throng. The leaguered town
And by the field and meadows brown
Has cast aside its useless load,
Where starving cattle faintly lowed,

They faltered up, they faltered down,
Half dazed with fear, along the road.
Then, by the fields and meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed,

The hero who had stormed the town
Day after day, and careless rode
Day after day by meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed.

Unheeding still the meadows brown,
Along the white and dusty road,
With swift, sharp strokes came riding down
The starving cattle as they lowed.

His laughing eyes that had bestowed
His face was set beneath a frown;
No glance upon the meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed.

Now fierce, yet soft looked shining down
Upon the groups that thronged the road.
Blind to the meadows bare and brown,
Deaf to the cattle as they lowed.

His great heart suddenly bore down
The conqueror's pride, and back he rode,
Past all the fields and meadows brown
Where starving cattle faintly lowed.

He fed the people of the town—
These famished groups that thronged the road—
And through the fields and meadows brown
He called the cattle as they lowed.

And fed them all. Then from the town
He turned away, and lightly rode
Past all the fields and meadows brown,
With face that shone and eyes that glowed.

"Vive Dieu!" he cried. "I'll take no town
By famine's scourge; a fairer road
Must Henry of Navarre ride down
To find his triumphs well bestowed."

—Harper's Magazine for August.