6
Round the flag of freedom rally,
Cheerily oh! cheerily oh!
THE SOLDIERS DREAM.
Our bugles sung 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 forgot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And twice, ere the cock crew, I dreamt it again.
Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far far I had roam'd on a desolate tract,
Till nature and sunshine disclos'd the sweet way,
To the house of my father, who welcom'd me
I flew to the pleasant field, travers'd so oft;
In life's morning watch, when my bosom was young:
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.
