"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 battle-field, with bloody corpses strewn; 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,-- I awoke with an eager, famishing lip, But you had no bread for me. How could I look to you, mother, How could I look to you, For bread to give to your starving boy, When you were starving too? For I read the famine in your cheek, And in your eye so wild, And I felt it in your bony hand, As you laid it on your child. The queen has lands and gold, mother, The queen has lands and gold, While you are forced to your empty breast A skeleton babe to hold,-- A babe that is dying of want, mother, As I am dying now, With a ghastly look in its sunken eye, And famine upon its brow.