THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON (1820-1897), an American poet, was born in Philadelphia. Her father, a scholarly Presbyterian minister, who was for thirteen years the president of what is now Washington and Lee University, gave her education his personal 5 direction. She was the wife of Professor Preston of the Virginia Military Institute. In her adopted home of Lexington, Virginia, she cast in her lot heartily with the Southern people, and on the Confederate side became the leading woman singer of the war period.

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Garçon! You, you,

Snared along with this cursèd crew?
(Only a child, and yet so bold,
Scarcely as much as ten years old!)

Do you hear? Do you know

Why the gendarmes put you there, in the row,
You, with those Commune wretches tall,

With your face to the wall?"

"Know! To be sure I know! why not?
We're here to be shot;

And there, by the pillar, 's the very spot,
Fighting for France, my father fell:

Ah, well!

That's just the way I would choose to fall,
With my back to the wall!

"Sacré! Fair, open fight, I say,

Is something right gallant in its way,
And fine for warming the blood; but who
Wants wolfish work like this to do?
Bah! 't is a butcher's business!) How?
(The boy is beckoning to me now:

I knew that his poor child's heart would fail,
Yet his cheek's not pale :)

Quick! say your say, for don't you see,

'Excuse you one moment'? O, ho, ho!

Do you think to fool a gendarme so?"

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"But, sir, here's a watch that a friend one day 15 (My father's friend), just over the way,

Lent me; and if you 'll let me free,

-It still lacks seven minutes of three,

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I'll come, on the word of a soldier's son,

Straight back into line, when my errand's done."

"Ha, ha! No doubt of it! Off! Begone!
(Now, good Saint Denis, speed him on!

The work will be easier since he's saved;
For I hardly see how I could have braved
The ardor of that innocent eye,

As he stood and heard,

While I gave the word,

Dooming him like a dog to die.")

"In time! Well, thanks, that my desire Was granted; and now, I am ready:- Fire! One word! that 's all!

You'll let me turn my back to the wall?"
"Parbleu! Come out of the line, I say,

Come out! (Who said that his name was Ney?)
Ha! France will hear of him yet one day!"

garçon the French word for boy.— gendarmes: French policemen. Commune a name given to the government established by the people when they overthrew the regular government of France. Sacré: a French exclamation. -Saint Denis: the patron saint of France. — Ney: a gallant French general.

ULYSSES' SEARCH FOR A NEW WORLD

DANTE ALIGHIERI

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321), an Italian poet who ranks with the greatest poets of the world, was born in Florence. His father died early, and Dante's education was supervised by his mother and by the statesman, scholar, and poet, Brunetto Latini. Dante was for a time a sol

dier, and also held honorable' civil offices in his native city.

Florence was in his day divided into two hostile political parties, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs took sides with the pope, and the Ghibellines with the emperor. During the struggles of these two parties, Dante, who belonged to the more moder

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ate of the Guelph factions, was banished from Florence and 20 never again saw the city that he loved so much. Yet, a half century after his death, Boccaccio was appointed by the republic of Florence to lecture in public explanation of the poet's works. Dante died in the city of Ravenna, and his tomb still stands there.

In this poem

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The Divine Comedy is Dante's greatest poem. Virgil, the great Latin poet, shows Dante through the spacious borders of hell and purgatory. But when the two poets reach heaven, Beatrice, a beautiful maiden whom Dante loved from her ninth year, and who was the inspirer of much of his poetry, 30 acts as guide in the place of Virgil.

There have been over three hundred and twenty-five editions of this poem printed, and it has been translated into the language of almost every European nation.

Dante was so great and so conscious of his own greatness that 5 in his Inferno he calmly places himself among the six foremost poets; and posterity has fully ratified his judgment. DEAN FARRAR.

The two Poets, Dante and his guide, Virgil, next looked down on a long procession of painted 10 people, moving with very slow steps and wearing cloaks with cowls gilded on the outside. These were Hypocrites, and the cowls were in reality made of lead though they appeared to be gold, just as the Hypocrites themselves had appeared fair and 15 good outwardly to deceive people and conceal their bad lives. These cowls were a dreadful weight and caused much suffering to their wearers, who could only move very slowly in consequence.

But I must pass on to the story of Ulysses, which 20 is one of the most interesting from Dante's journey through Malebolge. After he and Virgil had left the slow procession of the Hypocrites some distance behind them, they came to a bridge of rock, and, looking down from it into a valley beneath, they 25 saw a number of moving lights which reminded Dante of glowworms as he had seen them lighting up some valley after dark on earth. He felt so