That bids the soldier’s heart beat quick and gay,
The song of “O’er the hills and far away.”
And now, beside the slumberer’s couch of leaves,
His parting web of thought the warrior chieftain weaves.
How sweetly the Boy in the beauty is sleeping
Of Life’s sunny morning of hope and of youth!
May his guardian angels, their watch o’er him keeping,
Keep his evening and noon in the pathways of truth!
Ah me! what delight it would give me to wake him,
And lead him wherever my life-banners wave,
O’er the pathways of glory and honor to take him,
And teach him the lore of the bold and the brave;
And when the war-clouds and their fierce storm of water,
O’er the land that we love their outpourings shall cease,
Bid him bear to her Ark, from her last field of slaughter,
Upon Victory’s wings, the green olive of Peace;
And when the death-note of my bugle has sounded,
And memorial tears are embalming my name,
By young hearts like his may the grave be surrounded
Where I sleep my last sleep in the sunbeams of fame.
