With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at my own fingers nursed; And as it grew, so every day It wax'd more white and sweet than they. It had so sweet a breath! and oft I blush'd to see its foot more soft And white, shall I say, than my hand? Nay, any lady's of the land! It is a wond'rous thing how fleet 'Twas on those little silver feet: With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when 't had left me far away 'Twould stay, and run again, and stay, For it was nimbler much than hinds; And trod as if on the four winds.
I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness, And all the spring-time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft, where it should lie; Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes. For, in the flaxen lilies' shade It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips e'en seem'd to bleed; And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill; And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within.
Our bugles sang 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 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 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 kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart.