THE WEARIED SOLDIER
.
"When silent time, wi' lightly foot,
Had trod o'er thirty years,
I sought again, my native land,
Wi' many hopes and fears."
MRS. HAMILTON.
He came to the village, when the sun
In the "golden west" was bright,
When sounds were dying one by one,
And the vesper star was shining down,
With a soft and silvery light.
A war-worn wanderer was he,
And absent many a year
From the cottage-home he fain would see,
From that resting-place where he would be,
The spot to memory dear.
It rose at last upon his view,
(Old times were thronging round him,)
The lattice where the jasmine grew,
The meadow where he brush'd the dew
When youth's bright hopes were round him.
But faces new, and sadly strange,
Were in that cottage now;
Cold eyes, that o'er his features range,
For time had wrought a weary change
Upon the soldier's brow.
And some there were—the lov'd—the dead—
Whom he no more could see,
From this cold changing world were fled,
And they had found a quiet bed
Beneath the old yew tree.
And thither too—the wanderer hied,
Night-dews were falling fast,
This is my "welcome home" he cried,
And the chill breezes low replied
In murmurs as they pass'd.
They whispering said, or seem'd to say,
No lasting joys to earth are given,
No longer near these ashes stray,
Go, mourner! hence, away! away!
Thy lost ones are in heaven.
Kirton, Lindsey. ANNE R.