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.