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Roll-roll! "Brothers, what do ye here,
Slowly and sadly as ye pass along,

With

your dull march and low funereal song?"
"Comrade! we bear a bier!

I saw him fall!

And, as he lay beneath his steed, one thought,

(Strange how the mind such fancy should have wrought!) That, had he died beneath his native skies,

Perchance some gentle bride had closed his eyes

And wept beside his pall!"

G. W. Patten.

CXC.

THE BATTLE OF IVRY.

NOW glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Navarre! Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance, Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vales, O pleasant land of France!

And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters, Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters; As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,

For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy. Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war! Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre!

O! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,
We saw the army
of the League draw out in long array;
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears!
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land!
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand;
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,
To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The King has come to marshal us, in all his armor drest,
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.

He looked upon his People, and a tear was in his eye;
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,
Down all our line, in deafening shout, "God save our lord, the
King!"

"And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray,

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks of

war,

And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre."

Hurrah! the foes are moving! Hark to the mingled din
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin !
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now, by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies now, upon them with the lance!
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white

crest,

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star, Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

Now, God be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne hath turned his rein,

D'Aumale hath cried for quarter

the Flemish Count is slain ; Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale; The fields are heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail.

And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van "Remember Saint Bartholemew!" was passed from man to man. But out spake gentle Henry, then, "No Frenchman is foe my Down, down with every foreigner! but let your brethren go." O! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war, As our sovereign lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre !

Ho! maidens of Vienna! Ho! matrons of Lucerne !
Weep, weep and rend your hair for those who never shall return!
Ho! Philip, send for charity thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's

souls.

Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright!
Ho! burghers of St. Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night!
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the
slave,

And mocked the counsel of the wise and the valor of the brave.
Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre!
T. B. Macaulay.

A

CXCI.

THE SOLDIER FROM BINGEN.

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 ebb'd 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

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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 'midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars,
The death-wound on their gallant brea-ts, 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!

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"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 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 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

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"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 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,

weak,

his grasp was childish

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 battle-field, with bloody corpses strown;
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.

CXCII.

"GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER.”

GIVE me three grains of corn, mother,

Only three grains of corn;

It will keep the little life I have,

Till the coming of the morn.

I am dying of hunger and cold, mother,
Dying of hunger and cold,

And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.

It has gnawed like a wolf, at my heart, mother,

A wolf that is fierce for blood,

-

All the livelong day, and the night beside,
Gnawing for lack of food.

I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother,

And the sight was heaven to see,

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