All slumbers, hushed by these sweet tones,
Even the night-clad distance rests.
Beneath its spell the captive's moans
Have ceased, as he his grief forgets.
"How pleasant the life this sound awakes
Upon the sleeping, peaceful ground.
When time to wings tomorrow takes
My ears no more shall hear the quakes
And quivers of the trumpet's sound."
Again he falters—the clanging chain
Now fills the narrow prison cell;
Then all is quiet . . . Depths of pain
Have gripped his heart within their spell.
And far beyond, the trumpet's strain
Complains and dies upon the dell.
"The future time?—The coming day?
What follows? Is it a dream's wild fray
Or a slumber without any dreams?
Mayhap, a slumber in a way
Was the life I lived, and the coming day
Shall pass to other dreams and schemes?
Or what I longed for all my life
And found not in my earthly strife,
Will this the coming day expose?
Who knows? This no one, no one knows."
Again he's still . . . The quiet night
Casts all about its dark still wrap.
Gone is the full moon's shining might
And the twinkling stars . . . While on all sides
Black, frightful darkness now abides.
The dale yawns like a grave's wide gap.
24
