The Rhode Island Republican

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

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 resting that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf and the dog watched, that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And which ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battlefield's dreadful array
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my father, 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.

There pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends ne'er 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.