"Tell my brothers and companions when they meet and crowd around
To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground,
That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done,
Full many a corse lay ghastly pale, beneath the setting sun.
And midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars,
The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars:
But some were young—and suddenly beheld life's morn decline;
And one had come from Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

"Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age, And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage: For

my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped fōrth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild; And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hōard,

I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword, And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine, On the cottage-wall at Bingen-calm Bingen on the Rhine!

"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head, When the troops are marching home again, with glad and gallant

tread;

But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye,

For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die.

And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame;

And to hang the old swōrd in its place (my father's sword and mine), For the honor of old Bingen-dear Bingen on the Rhine!

"There's another-not a sister; in the happy days gone by, You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye; Too innocent for coquetry,—too fond for idle scorning,–

O friend! I fear the lightèst heart makes sometimes heaviest mourn

ing;

Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen
My body will be out of pain-my soul be out of prison),

I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

"I saw the blue Rhine sweep along I heard, or seemed to hear, The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear

And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill,

The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still; And her glad blue eyes were on me as we passed with friendly talk Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk, And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine :

But we'll meet no more at Bingen-loved Bingen on the Rhine!"

His voice grew faint and hoarser, his grasp was childish weak,-
His eyes put on a dying look,—he sighed and ceased to speak :
His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled,-
The soldier of the Legion, in a foreign land—was dead!
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down
On the red sand of the battle-field, with bloody corpses strewn ;
Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

CAROLINE NORTON.

THE WIDOW AND CHILD.

OME they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swooned nor uttered

All her maidens, watching, said,

"She must weep, or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truèst friend and noblèst foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took a face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee—

Like summer tempèst came her tears-
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

cry;

ALFRED TENNYSON.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE.

P from the meadows rich with corn,

Uclear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished Rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of the early fall

When Lee marched over the mountain wall,—

Over the mountains winding down,

Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

H! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

OH

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam;
Its full glory, reflected, now shines on the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner, oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is the band who so vauntingly swöre,

'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country they'd leave us no mōre?

Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution; No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between our loved home and the war's desolation;
Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,

And this be our motto, "IN GOD IS OUR TRUST ;"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.