The Soldier’s Dream

The Soldier’s Dream.
154.1

Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground over- powered.
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf searing fagot that guarded the slain.
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw; And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-Arld’s dreadful array Far, far, I had roam’d on a desolate track.
Till autumn; and sunshine arose on the way,
To the house of my father, that welcomed me back.

I flow to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft
In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young:
I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o’er, And my wife sobhed aloud in her fullness of heart.

“Stay, stay with us!-reat! thou art weary and worn!
(And rain was their war broken soldier to stay):
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn. And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away!
Campbell