LXXXVI.  THE SOLDIER OF THE RHINE.

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (b. 1808, d. 1877) was the grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.  She wrote verses and plays at a very early age.  “The Sorrows of Rosalie,” published in 1829, was written before she was seventeen years old.  In 1827 she was married to the Hon. George Chapple Norton.  The marriage was an unhappy one, and they were divorced in 1836.  Her principal works are “The Undying One,” “The Dream, and Other Poems,” “The Child of the Islands,” “Stuart of Dunleith, a Romance,” and “English Laws for English Women of the 19th Century.”  She contributed extensively to the magazines and other periodicals.

1.  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 lifeblood 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 nevermore 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.

2.  “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; But some were young, and suddenly beheld life’s morn decline,—­ And one had come from Bingen,—­fair Bingen on the Rhine.

3.  “Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age, For I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage.  For my father was a soldier, and, even when 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 cottage wall at Bingen,—­calm Bingen on the Rhine.

4.  “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.

5.  “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.