THE SOLDIERS DREAM.
Our bugles sung truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,
And the sentinel-stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die,
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring forgot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And twice, ere the cock crew, I dreamt it again.
Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far far I had roam'd on a desolate tract,
Till nature and sunshine disclos'd the sweet way,
To the house of my father, who welcom'd me
I flew to the pleasant field, travers'd so oft;
In life's morning watch, when my bosom was young:
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.
Then pledg'd we the wine-cup-and fondly I sware,
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobb'd aloud in the fullness of heart—
'Stay, stay with us, rest-thou art weary and worn!'
And fain was the war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming car melted away.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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