| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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: | 10 |
| ’Twas autumn; and sunshine arose on the way | |
| To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me 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, | 15 |
| 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 sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. | 20 |
| |
| “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. | |
| |
