| OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd, | |
| And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; | |
| And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, | |
| 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 battlefield's dreadful array | |
| Far, far I had roam'd 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 kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, | |
| And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fullness of heart. | 20 |
| |
| "Stay—stay with us!—rest!—thou art weary and worn!"— | |
| And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;— | |
| But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, | |
| And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. | |
| |
