Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and danced around the fairy tree they sang the song which was the tree’s song, the song of _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont_. They sang it to a quaint sweet air—a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know or feel what that song has been through the drifting centuries to exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to us, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices break and we cannot sing the last lines: “And when, in exile wand’ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!” and you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And _that_ hallows it, yes, you will grant that: _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont._ Song of the children Now what has kept your leaves so green, Arbre Fée de Bourlemont? The children’s tears! they brought each grief, And you did comfort them and cheer Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear That, healèd, rose, a leaf. And what has built you up so strong, Arbre Fée de Bourlemont? The children’s love! they’ve loved you long: Ten hundred years, in sooth, They’ve nourished you with praise and song, And warmed your heart and kept it young— A thousand years of youth! Bide always green in our young hearts, Arbre Fée de Bourlemont! And we shall always youthful be, Not heeding Time his flight; And when, in exile wand’ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight! JOAN BEFORE RHEIMS We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July, we came in sight of our goal and saw the great cathedral towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse, gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her sublime mission was closing—closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could say, “It is finished—let me go free.” JOAN’S REWARD