The sailor on his airy shrouds : And spectres walk along the deep. Milder yet thy snowy breezes Pour on yonder tented shores, Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes, Or the dark-brown Danube roars. Oh winds of winter ! list ye there To many a deep and dying groan ; At shrieks and thunders louder than your own. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM, Our bugles sang true—for the night-cloud had low'r’d, And the centinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpow'r’d, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot 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 roam'd on a desolate track: 'Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcom'd me back. I flew to the pleasant fields travers'd 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 pledg'd 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 fulness 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. |