» The Soldier’s Dream . lmm-anne.net

The Soldier’s Dream

Ilse writes to Emily:

In life’s morning march when my bosom was young I could have fried in boiling oil anyone–except you–at whom Perry Miller cast a sheep’s eye.

-Emily’s Quest ch.21

The Soldier’s Dream
By Thomas Campbell

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
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:
‘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 fullness 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.