The Battle Field.
I dream’d I stood on the battle field,1
And around me the dead were lying ;2
I heard the groans of the wounded, who3
Were in their agony dying.4
I heard the faint low mutterings of home,5
Of father, sister and brother,6
The strangl’d throb, the deep death sigh,7
My mother ! O, my mother.8
I lean’d o’er my broken spear, and look’t9
On many a mangl’d heap,10
Foe lay by foe as still and calm,11
As babies when lull’d to sleep.12
I saw by the straggling moon’s pale light,13
The she-wolf and her brood,14
Greedily gnawing the bones of the dead,15
And laping their yet warm blood.16
I saw the cottager’s peaceful home 17
In flames and in ruin laid,18
I heard the yell of the victor fiend,19
And the shriek of the ravish’d maid.20
I look’t o’er the fields of the full ear’d corn, 21
Now blighted and torn down ;22
Heaven’s golden day and its bounty mar’d,23
For a thing they call’d renown.24
I mus’d on these troubles of the earth,25
How in toil and in strife they sped,26
This all th’ amount tho destroyer destroy’ d,27
Unblest and enroll’d with the dead.28
If this, I said, is the pastime of kings,29
And glory of things call’d man,30
God’s image efface, blot humanity out,31
And herd with the beasts in their den.32