would, but I 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 come 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 sword 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 lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest
mourning.
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.

[Illustration]

"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 trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, 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 is dead;
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down
On the red sand of the battle-field with bloody corses strewn;
Yet calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.

CAROLINE E.S. NORTON.

OSITO.

On the lofty mountain that faced the captain's cabin the frost had
already made an insidious approach, and the slender thickets of
quaking ash that marked the course of eac