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 dreamed it again.
Methought from the battlefield’s dreadful array,Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;’Twas autumn—and sunshine arose on the wayTo the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oftIn 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 sworeFrom 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!
—Thomas Campbell.
