The Soldier’s Dream

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)

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 dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field’s dreadful array,

Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:

’T was 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 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.