"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. "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; 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 - fair Bingen on the Rhine. "I saw the blue Rhine sweep along, I heard, or seemed to hear, The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still; 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 comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled, - WE HAVE been frienDS TOGETHER. WE have been friends together In infancy we played. Shall a light word part us now? We have been gay together; We have laughed at little jests; For the fount of hope was gushing Warm and joyous in our breasts, |But laughter now hath fled thy lip, We have been gay together, We have been sad together; We have wept with bitter tears O'er the grass-grown graves where slumbered The hopes of early years. Oh, what shall part us now? JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. PEACE AND PAIN. THE day and night are symbols of creation, And each has part in all that God has made: There is no ill without its compensation, And life and death are only light and shade. There never beat a heart so base and sordid But felt at times a sympathetic glow; [ed, There never lived a virtue unrewardNor died a vice without its meed of woe. In this brief life despair should never reach us; The sea looks wide because the shores are dim; The star that led the Magi still can teach us The way to go if we but look to Him. The air of the valley has felt the chill: The workers pause at the door of the mill; The housewife, keen to the shivering air Arrests her foot on the cottage stair, Instinctive taught by the motherlove, And thinks of the sleeping ones above. Why start the listeners? Why does A monster in aspect, with shaggy front, Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt Of the homes they shatter-whitemaned and hoarse, The merciless Terror fills the course Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves, With Death on the first of its hissing waves, Jmill Till cottage and street and crowded Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a Are crumbled and crushed. the course How many, darker, cower out of sight, That dig and dig a never-ending cave, And burrow, blind and silent, like | Our hidden sins gnaw through the the mole. And like the mole, too, with its busy feet soul, and meet And feast upon each other in its grave. Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; Labor is glory!- the flying cloud lightens; Only the waving wing changes and brightens; Idle hearts only the dark future frightens; Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune! Labor is rest, Rest from the sorrows that greet us; from all petty vexations that meet us, Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. Work, and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work, - thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow: Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping-willow! Work with a stout heart and resolute will! Labor is health, lo! the husband man reaping, How through his vein goes the lifecurrent leaping! How his strong arm in his stalwart pride sweeping, True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. Labor is wealth, pearl groweth: in the sea the Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth; Keep the watch wound, for the dark | From the fine acorn the strong forest |