BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 155

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!

Hon. Mrs. Norton.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

HAINED in the market-place he stood,
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude

That shrank to hear his name,
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground,
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought

He was a captive now;

Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow;

The scars his dark broad bosom wore, Showed warrior, true and brave;

A prince among his tribe before,

He could not be a slave.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

157

Then to his conqueror he spake, -
"My brother is a king:

Undo this necklace from my neck,
And take this bracelet ring,

And send me where my brother reigns,
And I will fill thy hands

With store of ivory from the plains,

And gold dust from the sands."

"Not for thy ivory or thy gold

Will I unbind thy chain;

That bloody hand shall never hold
The battle spear again.

A price thy nation never gave

Shall yet be paid for thee;

For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,
In land beyond the sea."

Then wept the warrior chief and bade
To shred his locks away,

And, one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.

Thick were the platted locks, and long,

And, deftly hidden there,

Shone many a wedge of gold among

The dark and crispéd hair.

"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold, Long kept for sorest need;

Take it, thou askest sums untold,

And say that I am freed.

158

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

Take it, my wife, the long, long day,

Weeps by the cocoa tree,

And my young children leave their play,

And ask in vain for me.”

"I take thy gold,

but I have made

Thy fetters fast and strong,

And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife shall wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.

His heart was broken, crazed his brain,
At once his eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,

And once, at shut of day,

They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena's prey.

W. C. Bryant.

MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS.

Y heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;

My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the

North,

The birthplace of valor, the country of worth ; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The hills of the Highlands forever I love.

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with

snow;

Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not

here,

My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer.

Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Robert Burns.