The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars;
And some were young, and suddenly beheld life's morn decline,
And one had come from Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.
"Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort her old age;
For I was still 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 I kept my father's sword;
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine