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 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 father's sword;

And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine

On the village 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 stead

fast 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 this 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 battlefield, with bloody corpses strown;1

Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine,

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

MRS. NORTON.

103.- Love of Country.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand! 2

1 strown strewed.

I 2 foreign strand, foreign land.

1

If such there breathe, go, mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures 1 swell.
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,2
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

4

8

And, doubly dying," shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

SCOTT.

This is a partial translation of a famous German national song by Professor Arndt. It was written at a time when Germany was divided into many independent states, and was designed to rouse, as it did, the spirit of German unity.

"What country does a German claim?

His Fatherland, -know'st thou its name?

Is it Bavaria? Saxony?

An inland state, or on the sea?

There on the Baltic's plains .of sand,

Or mid the Alps of Switzerland?

1 minstrel raptures, praises of "concentered all in self;" that is,

the poet; hence fame.

2 pelf, riches, - but conveying a contemptuous idea of property or wealth.

utterly selfish.

4 fair, beautiful, honorable.

5 doubly dying: that is, dying not only bodily, but in the rememconcentrated; brances of his fellow-men.

Austria? the Adriatic shores?

Or where the Prussian eagle soars?
Or where the hills, clad by the vine,
Adorn the landscape of the Rhine?
O no! O no! not there alone,

The land with pride we call our own;
Not there: a German's heart or mind
Is to no narrow realm confined.
Where'er he hears his native tongue,
When hymns of praise to God are sung,
There is his Fatherland, and he
Has but one country,-GERMANY! "

105.-The Eve before Waterloo.

This powerful descriptive poem is an extract from Lord Byron's "Childe Harold" (Canto III.). The battle of Waterloo was fought between the French under Napoleon and the English under Wellington in 1815, Napoleon being overthrown. Waterloo is a hamlet ten miles distant from Brussels, "Belgium's capital." To understand some of the allusions, it should be mentioned, that, when the impending battle was announced, many of the British officers were present at a ball at the British embassy in Brussels.

There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry,' and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.

1 beauty... chivalry; i.e., beau- | figure is synecdoche. (See Definitiful women and brave men. The tion 7.)