Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it: especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall & Inglis.

It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":-- "Haro, Haro! a l'aide, mon Prince! A loyal people calls; Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lance To stay destruction's fell advance Against the Castle walls: Haro, Haro! a l'aide, ma Reine! Thy duteous children not in vain Plead for old Cornet yet again, To spare it, ere it falls! "What?
shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength, After six hundred years, at length Be recklessly laid low?
His grey machicolated tower Torn down within one outraged hour By worse than Vandals' ruthless power ?-- Haro! a l'aide, Haro! "Nine years old Cornet for the throne Against rebellion stood alone-- And honoured still shall stand, For heroism so sublime, A relic of the olden time, Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme, The glory of her land! "Ay,--let your science scheme and plan With better skill than so; Touch not this dear old barbican, Nor dare to lay it low! "On Vazon's ill-protected bay Build and blow up, as best ye may, And do your worst to scare away Some visionary foe,-- But, if in brute and blundering power You tear down Rodolph's granite tower, Defeat and scorn and shame that hour Shall whelm you like an arrowy shower-- Haro! a l'aide, Haro!" When my antiquarian cousin Ferdinand, the historian of "Sarnia" and our "Family Records," saw these lines, he positively made serious objection--while generally approving them--against my saying "six hundred years," whereas, according to him, it was only five hundred and ninety-three! he actually wanted me to alter it, or at all events insert "almost,"-- so difficult is it to reconcile literal accuracy with poetical rhyme and rhythm.

I seem to remember that he wrote to the local papers about this.

However, it is some consolation to know that these heartfelt verses forced the War Office to spare Castle Cornet: the Norman appeal by Haro being a privilege of Channel-Islanders to bring their grievances direct to the Queen in council.

As I have continually the honour "Monstrari digito praetereuntium" in the _role_ of a "Fidicen," I suppose that poetries in such a self-record as this are not positive bores--they can always be skipped if they are--so I will even give here a cheerful bit of rhyme which I jotted down at midnight on the deck of a yacht in a half-gale off Cherbourg, when going with a deputation from Guernsey to meet the French President in 1850:-- _A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney._ I.
"Sprinkled thick with shining studs Stretches wide the tent of heaven, Blue, begemmed with golden buds,-- Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear, Glory's hollow hemisphere Arch'd above these frothing floods Right and left asunder riven, As our cutter madly scuds, By the fitful breezes driven, When exultingly she sweeps Like a dolphin through the deeps, And from wave to wave she leaps Rolling in this yeasty leaven,-- Ragingly that never sleeps, Like the wicked unforgiven! II.
"Midnight, soft and fair above, Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,-- All on high the smile of love, All below the frown of death: Waves that whirl in angry spite With a phosphorescent light Gleaming ghastly on the night,-- Like the pallid sneer of Doom, So malicious, cold, and white, Luring to this watery tomb, Where in fury and in fright Winds and waves together fight Hideously amid the gloom,-- As our cutter gladly sends, Dipping deep her sheeted boom Madly to the boiling sea, Lighted in these furious floods By that blaze of brilliant studs, Glistening down like glory-buds On the Race of Alderney!" A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria.