Tam Glen (1)/The soldier's dream

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THE SOLDIERS DREAM.

Our bugles sung 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
By the wolf-scaring forgot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And twice, ere the cock crew, I dreamt it again.

Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far far I had roam'd on a desolate tract,
Till nature and sunshine disclos'd the sweet way,
To the house of my father, who welcom'd me
I flew to the pleasant field, travers'd so oft;
In life's morning watch, when my bosom was young:
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledg'd we the wine-cup-and fondly I sware,
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 the fullness of heart—
'Stay, stay with us, rest-thou art weary and worn!'
And fain was the war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming car melted away.