La Marseillaise.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 2, 8 December 1911, Page 8

La Marseillaise.

"It's a far cry from Rouget de I'lsle and the ebullient departure of the cannoneers from Strasbourg to the athletic feat performed by William T. Burgess, i r orks'Jiirernan by birth, Frenchman by naturalisation ; from the march of the tot JO Marseillaise, "who knew how to die," to the swimmang of the English channel in this peaceful year of grace, 911. Yet the "strains of the same hymn-crowned the revelry on the night .'of the feast to the gunners in Strasbourg.; cheered' on the advance of .the brave 1500 from the ;Plhocean city to re-volution-tossed Paris, and buoyed "up the swimmer in' his jp.st desperate strokes to make the goal. Wonderful music.!' .It. accompanied Louis Capet on his way to the- guillotine to expiate the accumulated sins of the Bourbons-; it spurred oh" the soldiers of Dumouriezi as they flung themselves against the combined, foes of Franco-; still nights on the'deserts of Egypt.barken-"-od. to. it.,from, the rough throats of soldiers forsaken 'by and hemmed in by their enemies; bands at i!te head of victorious columns player?

it in tlie. capitals .of Germany,■ Austria,. Italy,, Spain,' and Russia. Now it heartens -the naturalised citizen, 'niade one with la Pa-trie by form of law; aha urges him on to one more, to one last effort —for the glory of the adopted innd. The "Marseillaise" is the paean of triumph in the day of triumph, the defiance of despair in the day of reverses. It is the expression of eternal hope, of the insistence of a people on -■*-<* right to be free, of the heart and ■soul of man striving to attain the millenium, that is always at hand, yet ■always just beyond his reach. As such, '■y. appeal is universal. 'Luckiest of musical compositions," Carlyle has it. —"Detroit News."