McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXXXVI · Part 9: Soldiers, birds, seeds and society

92. The Soldier of the Rhine (Mrs. C. E. S. Norton)

Goal: Your child reads a long story-poem with feeling and tells the dying soldier's messages to his family.

⏱ About 35 minutes · 6 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

A poem by Caroline Norton. A soldier of the Legion lies dying in Algiers and asks a comrade to carry messages home to his family and friends at Bingen on the Rhine. At the end the moon rises over the battlefield. Definitions and a note on how to say "Bingen" follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. About the author

    The book says Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (b. 1808, d. 1877) was a granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, wrote verses and plays when very young, and wrote "The Sorrows of Rosalie" before she was seventeen.

  2. Words and meanings

    The words and meanings are printed at the end of the lesson. Read a few together before the reading, so they don't trip your child up:

    Legion, division of an army.

    Dearth, scarcity.

    Ebbed, flowed out.

    Steadfast, firm, resolute.

    Yore, old times.

    The note says Bingen is pronounced Bing'en. Find Algiers (in North Africa) and the Rhine River (in Germany) on a map.

  3. Read aloud

    This is a long poem with long lines. Read it aloud together, taking turns by stanza. It begins:

    A Soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,

    There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;

    But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away,

    And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.

  4. Talk about it

    SayWho are the people the soldier sends messages to? What does he want his brothers and his mother to know?

    SayHe is dying far from home. Which line shows how much he misses Bingen?

    SayThe poem ends with the moon looking down calmly on the battlefield. Why might the poet end with the moon instead of the soldier?

  5. Tell it back

    Close the book.

    SayTell me the soldier's messages, one by one, as if you were the comrade bringing them home.

    Older children can write their narration in a short paragraph instead. Don't correct while they talk; just listen.

  6. Copywork

    Your child copies the lines that tell of his death:

    His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled

    The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land was dead!

Tip

The scan page with the middle of this poem could not be read for this guide. The steps use only lines from the first and last pages.

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