The day will seem brighter When the boys come home, For our hearts will be lighter When the boys come home. Wives and sweethearts will press them In their arms and caress them, And pray God to bless them, When the boys come home.
The thinned ranks will be proudest When the boys come home, And their cheer will ring the loudest When the boys come home. The full ranks will be shattered, And the bright arms will be battered, And the battle-standards tattered, When the boys come home.
Their bayonets may be rusty, When the boys come home, And their uniforms dusty, When the boys come home. But all shall see the traces Of battle's royal graces, In the brown and bearded faces, When the boys come home.
Our love shall go to meet them, When the boys come home, To bless them and to greet them, When the boys come home; And the fame of their endeavor Time and change shall not dissever From the nation's heart forever, When the boys come home.
How well my heart remembers Beside these camp-fire embers The eyes that smiled so far away,-- The joy that was November's.
Her voice to laughter moving, So merrily reproving,-- We wandered through the autumn woods, And neither thought of loving.
The hills with light were glowing, The waves in joy were flowing,-- It was not to the clouded sun The day's delight was owing.
Though through the brown leaves straying, Our lives seemed gone a-Maying; We knew not Love was with us there, No look nor tone betraying.
How unbelief still misses The best of being's blisses! Our parting saw the first and last Of love's imagined kisses.
Now 'mid these scenes the drearest I dream of her, the dearest,-- Whose eyes outshine the Southern stars, So far, and yet the nearest.
And Love, so gayly taunted, Who died, no welcome granted, Comes to me now, a pallid ghost, By whom my life is haunted.
With bonds I may not sever, He binds my heart forever, And leads me where we murdered him,-- The Hill beside the River.
Under the high unclouded sun That makes the ship and shadow one, I sail away as from the fort Booms sullenly the noonday gun.
The odorous airs blow thin and fine, The sparkling waves like emeralds shine, The lustre of the coral reefs Gleams whitely through the tepid brine.