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The requiem to his soul: to-morrow eve I will return, and in the narrow house Will see him laid to rest." The father knew The Prophetess, and humbly bow'd assent.

Now from the city, o'er the shadowy plain, Backward they bend their way. From silent thoughts The Maid awakening cried, "There was a time, When thinking on my closing hour of life, Though with a mind resolved, some natural fears Shook my weak frame; but now the happy hour, When this emancipated soul shall burst The cumbrous fetters of mortality, I look for wishfully. Conrade! my friend, This wounded heart would feel another pang Shouldst thou forsake me." "Joan!" the chief replied, "Along the weary pilgrimage of life Together will we journey, and beguile The painful way with hope, — such hope as, fix'd On heavenly things, brings with it no deceit, Lays up no food for sorrow, and endures From disappointment safe." Thus communing They reach'd the camp, yet hush'd; there separating, Each in the post allotted restless waits The day-break. Morning came: dim through the shade The twilight glimmers; soon the brightening clouds Imbibe the rays, and o'er the landscape spread The dewy light. The soldiers from the earth Arise invigorate, and each his food Receives, impatient to renew the war. Dunois his javelin to the Tournelles points — "Soldiers of France! behold, your foes are there!" As when a band of hunters, round the den Of some wood-monster, point their spears, elate In hope of conquest and the future feast, When on the hospitable board their spoil Shall smoke, and they, as foaming bowls go round, Tell to their guests their exploits in the chase, They with their shouts of exultation make The forest ring; so elevate of heart, With such loud clamors for the fierce assault The French prepare. Nor, keeping now the lists Dare the disheartened English man to man Meet the close conflict. From the barbican, Or from the embattled wall at random they Their arrows and their death-fraught enginery Discharged; meantime the Frenchmen did not cease With well-directed shafts their loftier foes To assail: behind the guardian pavais fenced, They at the battlements their arrows aim'd, Showering an iron storm, whilst o'er the bayle, The bayle now levell'd by victorious France, The assailants pass'd with all their mangonels; Or tortoises, beneath whose roofing safe, They, filling the deep moat, might for the towers Make fit foundation; or with petraries, War-wolves, and beugles, and that murderous sling The matafund, from whence the ponderous stone Made but one wound of him whom in its way It met; no pious hand might then compose The crush'd and mangled corpse to be conveyed To where his fathers slept: a dreadful train Prepared by Salisbury o'er the town besieged For hurling ruin; but that dreadful train Must hurl its ruin on the invader's head; Such retribution righteous Heaven decreed.

Nor lie the English trembling, for the fort Was ably garrison'd. Glacidas, the chief, A gallant man, sped on from place to place Cheering the brave; or if an archer's hand, Palsied with fear, shot wide his ill-aim'd shaft, Driving him from the ramparts with reproach And shame. He bore an arbalist himself, A weapon for its sure destructiveness Abominated once; wherefore of yore The assembled fathers of the Christian church Pronounced the man accursed whose impious hand Should use the murderous engine. Such decrees Befitted them, as ministers of peace, To promulgate, and with a warning voice, To cry aloud and spare not, 'Woe to them Whose hands are full of blood!' An English king, The lion-hearted Richard, their decree First broke, and rightly was he doom'd to fall By that forbidden weapon; since that day Frequent in fields of battle, and from far To many a good knight bearing his death wound From hands unknown. With such an instrument Arm'd on the ramparts, Glacidas his eye Cast on the assailing host. A keener glance Darts not the hawk when from the feather'd tribe He marks his prey. A Frenchman for his aim He chose, who kneeling by the trebuchet, Charged its long sling with death. Him Glacidas, Secure behind the battlements, beheld, And strung his bow; then bending on one knee, He in the groove the feather'd quarrel placed, And levelling with sure eye, his victim mark'd. The bow-string twang'd, swift on its way the dart Whizz'd, and it struck, there where the helmet's clasps Defend the neck; a weak protection now, For through the tube which draw's the breath of life Pierced the keen shaft; blood down the unwonted way Gush'd to the lungs, prone fell the dying man Grasping, convulsed, the earth; a hollow groan In his throat struggled, and the dews of death Stood on his livid cheek. The days of youth He had pass'd peaceful, and had known what joys Domestic love bestows, the father once Of two fair children; in the city hemm'd During the siege, he had beheld their cheeks Grow pale with famine, and had heard their cries For bread. His wife, a broken-hearted one, Sunk to the cold grave's quiet, and her babes With hunger pined, and follow'd; he survived, A miserable man, and heard the shouts Of joy in Orleans, when the Maid approach'd, As o'er the corpse of his last little one He heap'd the unhallowed earth. To him the foe