The Camp Fire
When night hung low and dew fell damp,
There fell athwart the shadows
The gleaming watchfires of the camp,
Like glow-worms on the meadows.
The sentinel his measured beat
With measured tread was keeping,
While like bronze statues at his feet
Lay tired soldiers, sleeping.
On some worn faces of the men
There crept a homesick yearning,
Which made it almost seem again,
The child-look was returning.
While on full many a youthful brow,
Till now to care a stranger,
The premature grave lines told how
They had grown old through danger.
One, in his slumber, laughed with joy,
The laughing echoes mocked him,
He thought beside his baby boy
He sat and gaily rocked him.
O pitying angels! Thou wert kind
To end this brief elysian,
He found what he no more could find
Save in a dreamer's vision.
The clear note of a mocking bird-
That star of sound-came falling
Down thro' the night; one, wakeful, heard
And answered to the calling,
And then upon the ear there broke
That sweet, pathetic measure,
That song that wakes-as then it woke,
Such mingled pain and pleasure.
One voice at first, and then the sound
Pulsed like a great bell's swinging,
'Tenting to-night on the old camp ground,'
The whole roused camp was singing.
The sense of warfare's discontent
Gave place to warfare's glory;
Right merrily the swift hours went
With song, and jest, and story.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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