Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,

At shrieks and thunders louder than your own.

Alas! ev'n your unhallow'd breath

May spare the victim, fallen low;

But man will ask no truce to death,―

No bounds to human woe".

3 This ode was written in Germany, at the close of 1800,

before the conclusion of hostilities,

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.