You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye;
Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning,
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,
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.
"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;