One day through the primeval wood,A calf walked home, as good calves should;But made a trail all bent askew,A crooked trail, as all calves do.Since then three hundred years have fled,And, I infer, the calf is dead.But still he left behind his trail,And thereby hangs a moral tale.The trail was taken up next dayBy a lone dog that passed that way,And then the wise bell-wether sheepPursued the trail o'er vale and steep,And drew the flock behind him, too,As good bell-wethers always do.And from that day, o'er hill and glade,Through those old woods a path was made.And many men wound in and out,And turned and dodged and bent about,And uttered words of righteous wrathBecause 'twas such a crooked path:But still they followed—do not laugh—The first migrations of that calf,And through this winding woodway stalkedBecause he wabbled when he walked.This forest path became a lane,That bent and turned and turned again;This crooked path became a road.Where many a poor horse, with his load,Toiled on beneath the burning sun,And traveled some three miles in one.And thus a century and a halfThey trod the footsteps of that calf.The years passed on in swiftness fleet,The road became a village street;And this, before men were aware,A city's crowded thoroughfare.And soon the central street was thisOf a renowned metropolis.And men two centuries and a halfTrod in the footsteps of that calf!Each day a hundred thousand routFollowed the zigzag calf about;And o'er his crooked journey wentThe traffic of a continent.A hundred thousand men were ledBy a calf near three centuries dead.They followed still his crooked wayAnd lost one hundred years a day;For thus such reverence is lentTo well-established precedent.A moral lesson this might teachWere I ordained and called to preach;For men are prone to go it blind,Along the calf-paths of the mind,And work away from sun to sunTo do what other men have done.They follow in the beaten track,And out and in, and forth and back,And still their devious course pursue,To keep the path that others do.But how the wise wood-gods must laugh,Who saw the first primeval calf;Ah, many things this tale might teach—But I am not ordained to preach.Sam Walter Foss.
Paul Revere was a rider bold—Well has his valorous deed been told;Sheridan's ride was a glorious one—Often it has been dwelt upon;But why should men do all the deedsOn which the love of a patriot feeds?Hearken to me, while I revealThe dashing ride of Jennie M'Neal.On a spot as pretty as might be foundIn the dangerous length of the Neutral Ground,In a cottage, cozy, and all their own,She and her mother lived alone.Safe were the two, with their frugal store,From all of the many who passed their door;For Jennie's mother was strange to fears,And Jennie was large for fifteen years;With vim her eyes were glistening,Her hair was the hue of a blackbird's wing;And while the friends who knew her wellThe sweetness of her heart could tell,A gun that hung on the kitchen wallLooked solemnly quick to heed her call;And they who were evil-minded knewHer nerve was strong and her aim was true.So all kind words and acts did dealTo generous, black-eyed Jennie M'Neal.One night, when the sun had crept to bed,And rain-clouds lingered overhead,And sent their surly drops for proofTo drum a tune on the cottage roof,Close after a knock at the outer doorThere entered a dozen dragoons or more.Their red coats, stained by the muddy road,That they were British soldiers showed;The captain his hostess bent to greet,Saying, "Madam, please give us a bit to eat;We will pay you well, and, if may be,This bright-eyed girl for pouring our tea;Then we must dash ten miles ahead,To catch a rebel colonel abed.He is visiting home, as doth appear;We will make his pleasure cost him dear."And they fell on the hasty supper with zeal,Close-watched the while by Jennie M'Neal.For the gray-haired colonel they hovered nearHad been her true friend, kind and dear;And oft, in her younger days, had heRight proudly perched her upon his knee,And told her stories many a oneConcerning the French war lately done.And oft together the two friends were,And many the arts he had taught to her;She had hunted by his fatherly side,He had shown her how to fence and ride;And once had said, "The time may be,Your skill and courage may stand by me."So sorrow for him she could but feel,Brave, grateful-hearted Jennie M'Neal.With never a thought or a moment more,Bare-headed she slipped from the cottage door,Ran out where the horses were left to feed,Unhitched and mounted the captain's steed,And down the hilly and rock-strewn wayShe urged the fiery horse of gray.Around her slender and cloakless formPattered and moaned the ceaseless storm;Secure and tight a gloveless handGrasped the reins with stern command;And full and black her long hair streamed,Whenever the ragged lightning gleamed.And on she rushed for the colonel's weal,Brave, lioness-hearted Jennie M'Neal.Hark! from the hills, a moment mute,Came a clatter of hoofs in hot pursuit;And a cry from the foremost trooper said,"Halt! or your blood be on your head";She heeded it not, and not in vainShe lashed the horse with the bridle-rein.So into the night the gray horse strode;His shoes hewed fire from the rocky road;And the high-born courage that never diesFlashed from his rider's coal-black eyes.The pebbles flew from the fearful race:The raindrops grasped at her glowing face."On, on, brave beast!" with loud appeal,Cried eager, resolute Jennie M'Neal."Halt!" once more came the voice of dread;"Halt! or your blood be on your head!"Then, no one answering to the calls,Sped after her a volley of balls.They passed her in her rapid flight,They screamed to her left, they screamed to her right;But, rushing still o'er the slippery track,She sent no token of answer back,Except a silvery laughter-peal,Brave, merry-hearted Jennie M'Neal.So on she rushed, at her own good will,Through wood and valley, o'er plain and hill;The gray horse did his duty well,Till all at once he stumbled and fell,Himself escaping the nets of harm,But flinging the girl with a broken arm.Still undismayed by the numbing pain,She clung to the horse's bridle-reinAnd gently bidding him to stand,Petted him with her able hand;Then sprung again to the saddle bow,And shouted, "One more trial now!"As if ashamed of the heedless fall,He gathered his strength once more for all,And, galloping down a hillside steep,Gained on the troopers at every leap;No more the high-bred steed did reel,But ran his best for Jennie M'Neal.They were a furlong behind, or more,When the girl burst through the colonel's door,Her poor arm helpless hanging with pain,And she all drabbled and drenched with rain,But her cheeks as red as fire-brands are,And her eyes as bright as a blazing star,And shouted, "Quick! be quick, I say!They come! they come! Away! away!"Then, sunk on the rude white floor of deal,Poor, brave, exhausted Jennie M'Neal.The startled colonel sprung, and pressedThe wife and children to his breast,And turned away from his fireside bright,And glided into the stormy night;Then soon and safely made his wayTo where the patriot army lay.But first he bent in the dim firelight,And kissed the forehead broad and white,And blessed the girl who had ridden so wellTo keep him out of a prison-cell.The girl roused up at the martial din,Just as the troopers came rushing in,And laughed, e'en in the midst of a moan,Saying, "Good sirs, your bird has flown.'Tis I who have scared him from his nest;So deal with me now as you think best."But the grand young captain bowed, and said,"Never you hold a moment's dread.Of womankind I must crown you queen;So brave a girl I have never seen.Wear this gold ring as your valor's due;And when peace comes I will come for you."But Jennie's face an arch smile wore,As she said, "There's a lad in Putnam's corps,Who told me the same, long time ago;You two would never agree, I know.I promised my love to be as true as steel,"Said good, sure-hearted Jennie M'Neal.Will Carleton.
They say that man is mighty, he governs land and sea;He wields a mighty scepter o'er lesser powers that be;By a mightier power and stronger, man from his throne is hurled,And the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.Blessings on the hand of woman! angels guard its strength and grace,In the palace, cottage, hovel, oh, no matter where the place!Would that never storms assailed it, rainbows ever gently curled;For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.Infancy's the tender fountain, power may with beauty flow;Mother's first to guide the streamlets, from them souls unresting grow;Grow on for the good or evil, sunshine streamed or darkness hurled;For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.Woman, how divine your mission here upon our natal sod!Keep, oh, keep the young heart open always to the breath of God!All true trophies of the ages are from mother-love impearled,For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.Blessings on the hand of woman! fathers, sons and daughters cry,And the sacred song is mingled with the worship in the sky—Mingles where no tempest darkens, rainbows evermore are curled;For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.William Ross Wallace.
I live for those who love me,Whose hearts are kind and true,For the heaven that smiles above me,And awaits my spirit, too;For the human ties that bind me,For the task by God assigned me,For the bright hopes left behind me,And the good that I can do.I live to learn their storyWho've suffered for my sake,To emulate their glory,And to follow in their wake;Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,The noble of all ages,Whose deeds crowd history's pages,And Time's great volume make.I live to hold communionWith all that is divine,To feel there is a union'Twixt Nature's heart and mine;To profit by affliction,Reap truths from fields of fiction,Grow wiser from conviction,And fulfill each grand design.I live to hail that season,By gifted minds foretold,When men shall rule by reason,And not alone by gold;When man to man united,And every wrong thing righted,The whole world shall be lightedAs Eden was of old.I live for those who love me,For those who know me true,For the heaven that smiles above me,And awaits my spirit, too;For the cause that lacks assistance,For the wrong that needs resistance,For the future in the distance,And the good that I can do.George Linnaeus Banks.
If all the ships I have at seaShould come a-sailing home to me,Weighed down with gems, and silk and gold,Ah! well, the harbor would not holdSo many ships as there would be,If all my ships came home from sea.If half my ships came home from sea,And brought their precious freight to me,Ah! well, I should have wealth as greatAs any king that sits in state,So rich the treasure there would beIn half my ships now out at sea.If but one ship I have at seaShould come a-sailing home to me,Ah! well, the storm clouds then might frown,For, if the others all went down,Still rich and glad and proud I'd beIf that one ship came home to me.If that one ship went down at seaAnd all the others came to meWeighed down with gems and wealth untold,With honor, riches, glory, gold,The poorest soul on earth I'd beIf that one ship came not to me.O skies, be calm; O winds, blow free!Blow all my ships safe home to me,But if thou sendest some awrack,To nevermore come sailing back,Send any, all that skim the sea,But send my love ship home to me.Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leansUpon his hoe and gazes on the ground,The emptiness of ages in his face,And on his back the burden of the world.Who made him dead to rapture and despair,A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?Is this the Thing, the Lord God made and gaveTo have dominion over sea and land;To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;To feel the passion of Eternity?Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the sunsAnd pillared the blue firmament with light?Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulfThere is no shape more terrible than this—More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed—More filled with signs and portents for the soul—More fraught with menace to the universe.What gulfs between him and the seraphim!Slave of the wheel of labor, what to himAre Plato and the swing of Pleiades?What the long reaches of the peaks of song,The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,Plundered, profaned and disinherited,Cries protest to the judges of the world,A protest that is also prophecy.O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,Is this the handiwork you give to God,This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?How will you ever straighten up this shape;Touch it again with immortality;Give back the upward looking and the light,Rebuild it in the music and the dream;Make right the immemorial infamies, perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,How will the Future reckon with this man?How answer his brute question in that hourWhen whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?How will it be with kingdom and with kings—With those who shaped him to the thing he is—When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,After the silence of the centuries?Edwin Markham.
Did you say you wished to see me, sir? Step in; 'tis a cheerless place,But you're heartily welcome all the same; to be poor is no disgrace.Have I been here long? Oh, yes, sir! 'tis thirty winters goneSince poor Jim took to crooked ways and left me all alone!Jim was my son, and a likelier lad you'd never wish to see,Till evil counsels won his heart and led him away from me.'Tis the old, sad, pitiful story, sir, of the devil's winding stair,And men go down—and down—and down—to blackness and despair;Tossing about like wrecks at sea, with helm and anchor lost,On and on, through the surging waves, nor caring to count the cost;I doubt sometimes if the Savior sees, He seems so far away,How the souls He loved and died for, are drifting—drifting astray!Indeed,'tis little wonder, sir, if woman shrinks and criesWhen the life-blood on Rum's altar spilled is calling to the skies;Small wonder if her own heart feels each sacrificial blow,For isn't each life a part of hers? each pain her hurt and woe?Read all the records of crime and shame—'tis bitterly, sadly true;Where manliness and honor die, there some woman's heart dies, too.I often think, when I hear folks talk so prettily and so fineOf "alcohol as needful food"; of the "moderate use of wine";How "the world couldn't do without it, there was clearly no other wayBut for a man to drink, or let it alone, as his own strong will might say";That "to use it, but not abuse it, was the proper thing to do,"How I wish they'd let old Poorhouse Nan preach her little sermon, too!I would give them scenes in a woman's life that would make their pulses stir,For I was a drunkard's child and wife—aye, a drunkard's mother, sir!I would tell of childish terrors, of childish tears and pain.Of cruel blows from a father's hand when rum had crazed his brain;He always said he could drink his fill, or let it alone as well;Perhaps he might, he was killed one night in a brawl—in a grog-shop hell!I would tell of years of loveless toil the drunkard's child had passed,With just one gleam of sunshine, too beautiful to last.When I married Tom I thought for sure I had nothing more to fear,That life would come all right at last; the world seemed full of cheer.But he took to moderate drinking—he allowed 'twas a harmless thing,So the arrow sped, and my bird of Hope came down with a broken wing.Tom was only a moderate drinker; ah, sir, do you bear in mindHow the plodding tortoise in the race left the leaping hare behind?'Twas because he held right on and on, steady and true, if slow,And that's the way, I'm thinking, that the moderate drinkers go!Step over step—day after day—with sleepless, tireless pace,While the toper sometimes looks behind and tarries in the race!Ah, heavily in the well-worn path poor Tom walked day by day,For my heart-strings clung about his feet and tangled up the way;The days were dark, and friends were gone, and life dragged on full slow,And children came, like reapers, and to a harvest of want and woe!Two of them died, and I was glad when they lay before me dead;I had grown so weary of their cries—their pitiful cries for bread.There came a time when my heart was stone; I could neither hope nor pray;Poor Tom lay out in the Potter's Field, and my boy had gone astray;My boy who'd been my idol, while, like hound athirst for blood,Between my breaking heart and him the liquor seller stood,And lured him on with pleasant words, his pleasures and his wine;Ah, God have pity on other hearts as bruised and hurt as mine.There were whispers of evil-doing, of dishonor, and of shame,That I cannot bear to think of now, and would not dare to name!There was hiding away from the light of day, there was creeping about at night,A hurried word of parting—then a criminal's stealthy flight!His lips were white with remorse and fright when he gave me a good-by kiss;And I've never seen my poor lost boy from that black day to this.Ah, none but a mother can tell you, sir, how a mother's heart will ache,With the sorrow that comes of a sinning child, with grief for a lost one's sake,When she knows the feet she trained to walk have gone so far astray,And the lips grown bold with curses that she taught to sing and pray;A child may fear—a wife may weep, but of all sad things, none otherSeems half so sorrowful to me as being a drunkard's mother.They tell me that down in the vilest dens of the city's crime and murk,There are men with the hearts of angels, doing the angels' work;That they win back the lost and the straying, that they help the weak to stand,By the wonderful power of loving words—and the help of God's right hand!And often and often, the dear Lord knows, I've knelt and prayed to Him,That somewhere, somehow, 'twould happen that they'd find and save my Jim!You'll say 'tis a poor old woman's whim; but when I prayed last night,Right over yon eastern window there shone a wonderful light!(Leastways it looked that way to me) and out of the light there fellThe softest voice I had ever heard: it rung like a silver bell;And these were the words, "The prodigal turns, so tired by want and sin,He seeks his father's open door—he weeps—and enters in."Why, sir, you're crying as hard as I; what—is it really done?Have the loving voice and the Helping Hand brought back my wandering son?Did you kiss me and call me "Mother"—and hold me to your breast,Or is it one of the taunting dreams that come to mock my rest?No—no! thank God, 'tis a dream come true! I can die, for He's saved my boy!And the poor old heart that had lived on grief was broken at last by joy!Lucy M. Blinn.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passes from life to his rest in the grave.The leaves of the oak and the willows shall fade,Be scattered around, and together be laid;And the young and the old, and the low and the highShall moulder to dust, and together shall die.The child whom a mother attended and loved,The mother that infant's affection who proved,The husband that mother and infant who blessed,Each—all are away to their dwelling of rest.The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eyeShone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by;And the memory of those who loved her and praisedAre alike from the minds of the living erased.The hand of the king who the scepter hath borne,The brow of the priest who the mitre hath worn,The eye of the sage and the heart of the braveAre hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,The beggar who wandered in search of his breadHave faded away like the grass that we tread.The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,The wise and the foolish, the guilty and justHave quietly mingled their bones in the dust.So the multitude goes—like the flower and the weedThat wither away to let others succeed;So the multitude comes—even those we behold,To repeat every tale that has often been told.For we are the same things that our fathers have been,We see the same sights that our fathers have seen;We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,And we run the same course that our fathers have run.The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink,To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling,But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.They loved—but their story we cannot enfold,They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold,They grieved—but no wail from their slumbers may come,They joy'd—but the voice of their gladness—is dumb.They died, ay, they died! and we things that are now,Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,Who make in their dwellings a transient abodeMeet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;And the smile, and the tear, and the song and the dirgeStill follow each other like surge upon surge.'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breathFrom the blossoms of health to the paleness of death;From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud—Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!William Knox.
'Twas long ago—ere ever the signal gunThat blazed before Fort Sumter had wakened the North as one;Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fireHad marked where the unchained millions marched on to their heart's desire.On roofs and glittering turrets, that night, as the sun went down,The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jeweled crown,And, bathed in the living glory, as the people lifted their eyes,They saw the pride of the city, the spire of St. Michael's riseHigh over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ballThat hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall;First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor round,And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward bound.The gently gathering shadows shut out the waning light;The children prayed at their bedsides as they were wont each night;The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart was gone,And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city slumbered on.But another light than sunrise aroused the sleeping street,For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush of trampling feet;Men stared in each other's faces, thro' mingled fire and smoke,While the frantic bells went clashing clamorous, stroke on stroke.By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the houseless mother fled,With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread;While the fire-king's wild battalions scaled wall and cap-stone high,And painted their glaring banners against an inky sky.From the death that raged behind them, and the crush of ruin loud,To the great square of the city, were driven the surging crowd,Where yet firm in all the tumult, unscathed by the fiery flood,With its heavenward pointing finger the church of St. Michael's stood.But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail,A cry of horror blended with the roaring of the gale,On whose scorching wings updriven, a single flaming brand,Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a bloody hand,"Will it fade?" the whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips;Far out on the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships.A baleful gleam, that brighter and ever brighter shone,Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-the-wisp to a steady beacon grown."Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand,For the love of the periled city, plucks down yon burning brand!"So cried the Mayor of Charleston, that all the people heard,But they looked each one at his fellow, and no man spoke a word,Who is it leans from the belfry, with face upturned to the sky—Clings to a column and measures the dizzy spire with his eye?Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that terrible, sickening height,Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his veins at the sight?But see! he has stepped on the railing, he climbs with his feet and his hands,And firm on a narrow projection, with the belfry beneath him, he stands!Now once, and once only, they cheer him—a single tempestuous breath,And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death.Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught save the goal of the fire,Still higher and higher, an atom, he moves on the face of the spire:He stops! Will he fall? Lo! for answer, a gleam like a meteor's track,And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black!Once more the shouts of the people have rent the quivering air;At the church door mayor and council wait with their feet on the stair,And the eager throng behind them press for a touch of his hand—The unknown savior whose daring could compass a deed so grand.But why does a sudden tremor seize on them as they gaze?And what meaneth that stifled murmur of wonder and amaze?He stood in the gate of the temple he had periled his life to save,And the face of the unknown hero was the sable face of a slave!With folded arms he was speaking in tones that were clear, not loud,And his eyes, ablaze in their sockets, burnt into the eyes of the crowd."Ye may keep your gold, I scorn it! but answer me, ye who can,If the deed I have done before you be not the deed of aman?"He stepped but a short space backward, and from all the women and menThere were only sobs for answer, and the mayor called for a pen,And the great seal of the city, that he might read who ran,And the slave who saved St. Michael's went out from its door a man.Mary A.P. Stansbury.
A 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 aroundTo hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground,That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done,Full many a corpse 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 childMy 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 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 nameTo 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—Oh, friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning;Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risenMy body will be out of pain—my soul be out of prison),I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shineOn 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 talkDown 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 downOn the red sand of the battle-field, with bloody corpses strown;Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shineAs it shone on distant Bingen—fair Bingen on the Rhine!Caroline Norton.