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,

name

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame, And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he And to hang the old sword in its place (my famight say. The dying soldier faltered, and he took that com- For the honor of old Bingen, — dear Bingen on

rade'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.

ther's sword and mine)

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,

Ampelopis, mock-grape. I have here literally trans- O friend! I fear the lightest heart makes some

lated the botanical name of the Virginia creeper, an appellation too cumbrous for verse.

times heaviest mourning!

Tell her the last night of my life (for, ere the moon | And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew,

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

Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder,

Craftily purposed, when his arms withdrew,

To make him thought still housed there, like the thunder:

On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, -fair Bingen on And it so fell; for when the winds blew right, the Rhine. They woke their trumpets to their calls of might.

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 trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp was childish weak,

His eyes put on a dying look,

ceased to speak;

he sighed and

Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew,
Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers,
Till the long fear into religion grew,

And nevermore those heights had human darers.
Dreadful Doolkarnein was an earthly god;

His walls but shadowed forth his mightier frowning;

Armies of giants at his bidding trod

From realm to realm, king after king dis

crowning.

When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirred,

Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.

But when the winters marred the mountain shelves,

And softer changes came with vernal mornings, Something had touched the trumpets' lofty selves, And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings;

His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads

life had fled,

[In Eastern history are two Iskanders, or Alexanders, who are sometimes confounded, and both of whom are called Doolkar.

nein, or the Two-Horned, in allusion to their subjugation of East So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound

and West, horns being an Oriental symbol of power.

One of these heroes is Alexander of Macedon; the other a con. queror of more ancient times, who built the marvellous series of

ramparts on Mount Caucasus, known in fable as the wall of Gog and Magog, that is to say, of the people of the North. It reached from the Euxine Sea to the Caspian, where its flanks originated the subsequent appellation of the Caspian Gates.]

WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possessed The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains,

Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West, Shut up the northern nations in their mountains;