Page:The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series.djvu/62

  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.

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. Coleridge's Text.

 24.

THE more we live, more brief appear Our life's succeeding stages: A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages.  40