Behead me, and I wander free,
In wood or meadow fair,
Leap down the rock on mosses soft,
Tall ferns, and maiden-hair;
Or linger in the sedgy deep,
And baby-lilies rock to sleep.
Behead again, and to your door,
If I presume to come,
I warn you, bid the porter say,
"To him I'm not at home.
Heaven save me from the visitations
Of all that sort of poor relations!"
Frill-rill-ill.
STORY OF A FRENCH SOLDIER.
THE CONSCRIPT.
In the wars of the great Napoleon, thousands of French soldiers were raised by conscription,—that is, taken by lot from the working classes.
These conscripts, though they generally made good soldiers, often went with great unwillingness and even sorrow from their humble homes and their loved ones, to endure the hardships of weary campaigns, to risk life and limb in desperate battles, for they scarcely knew what, with people against whom they had no ill-will.
On a cloudy morning in early May, a company of conscripts were marched away from a pleasant little hamlet in the South of France. For some distance on their way they were followed by loving friends, some weeping and some bravely striving to cheer them up.
At last these fell off, and the conscripts pursued their march in melancholy silence. On the brow of a hill, their road passed the gates of an old chateau, the seat of the ancient lords of the manor, the Counts De Lorme. The present Count, an old man, had lately been permitted to return from exile in England, to his half-ruined estate; but, in acknowledgment for this act of clemency, he had felt obliged to offer to the service of the Emperor his only son, who was now a captain in the grand army.