Part 1 — 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 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 roamed 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 kissed me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobbed 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 returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. Thomas Campbell.