XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count, I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise

And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last men came to set me free;

I asked not why, and recked not where; It was at length the same to me, Fettered or fetterless to be,

I learned to love despair.

And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage, and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,

Had power to kill, — yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell, -
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:

- even I

Regained my freedom with a sigh.

SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;

But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away,

And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might

say:

The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's

hand,

And he said, "I never more shall see my own, my native

land:

Take a message, and a token to some distant friends of

mine;

For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen on the Rhine.

"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 'mid the dead and dying were some grown old in

wars,

The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of

many scars;

And some were young, and suddenly beheld life's morn

decline,

And one had come from Bingen,

Rhine.

Tell my mother, that her other son shall comfort her

old age;

For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a cage. For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild;

And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard, I let them take whate'er they would, - but kept my fa

ther'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 droop

ing 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,

Rhine.

sweet Bingen on the

“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 meet no more at Bingen, - loved Bingen on the Rhine."

His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse,

was childish weak,

his grasp

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 by the battle-field, with bloody corses

strewn ;

Yes, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed

to shine,

As it shone on distant Bingen, -fair Bingen on the

Rhine.