Respectfully insrcibed to Miss Julia Kinny,
[Jamessville?], WI
"O! Touch Not My Sister's Picture;
or, The Confession of a Rebel Prisoner" (1863)
Song and Chorus
Words by E. S. Kellogg
Music by T. Martin Towne

1.
On the bloody field of battle,
  One dark night, with stealthy tread,
I was prowling round for plunder
  'Mid the dying and the dead.
And roughly seized a locket,
  Pressed upon a throbbing breast,
Words of pleasing, faintly uttered
  Sought my purpose to arrest.

CHORUS
O! touch not my sister's picture,
  Let it lie upon my heart;
With the parting kiss I promised
  I would never with it part.

2.
'Tis my dearest earthly treasure
  But to you of little worth;
Would you rob a fellow soldier,
  Dying on the cold, cold earth?
Gentle Mary, thy dear image,
  With its sewwt approving smile,
As I fondly gazed upon it,
  Kept me pure among the vile.

(CHORUS)

3.
Lonely orphans from our childhood
  With no one to love beside,
She hath been my more than mother--
  Friend and couselor and guide.
By the memory of thy mother,
  Let me plead with the once more,
Though I but repeat the language
  Which I vainly used before.

CHORUS
"O! touch not my sister's picture!"
  With these words he sank to rest.
In a new-made grace I left him,
  With that locket on his breast.