Poem by Thomas Campbell

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 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,
  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 fullness 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.

1. Lines on the Camp Hill, near Hastings
2. Napoleon and the British Sailor
3. The Exile of Erin
4. Gilderoy
5. O’Connor’s Child; Or, the Flower of Love Lies Bleeding

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