Page:Banks of the Ban.pdf/4

 flew to the pleasant fields, traveled so oft

in life’s morning march, when my bosom was young;

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

and well knew the strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledg’d we the wine cup, & fondly we swore,

from my home and my weeping friends never to part;

My little ones kiss’d me a hundred times o’er,

and my wife sobb’d aloud in the fulness of heart.

Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn,

and fain was the war-broken soldier to stay;

But sorrow return’d with the dawning of morn,

and the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.



Deep in a vale a cottage stood,

oft sought by travellers weary;

And long it prov’d the blest abode

of Edward and of Mary.

For her be chac’d the mountain goat,

o’er Alps and glaciers bounding;

For her the chamois he would shoot,

dark horrors all surrounding.