The Soldier's Dream

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 overpowered,     The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.     When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,     By the wolf-scaring 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-field's dreadful array     Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:     'Twas autumn; and sunshine arose on the way     To the home of my fathers, that welcomed my back.     I flew 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 strains 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 sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.     "Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn:"     And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;     But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,     And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.