  When reposing that night on my pallet of straw By the wolf-scaring faggot 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 roam’d 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 kiss’d me a thousand times o’er, And my wife sobb’d 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 return’d with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. T. Campbell. |
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