Last night as I toasted <br />My wet feet and roasted <br />A small bit of beef by a similar blaze, <br />While nought but the wheezings, <br />The snorings, and sneezings <br />Of comrades grouping in Dreamland's haze <br />Disturbed the fine vision - <br />The picture Elysian - <br />That Fancy's weird wand conjured up to my thought, <br />As she stood like a spooke, <br />In a garb of blue smoke, <br />And amid the hot embers her wonders she wrought. <br /> <br />Adown a highway <br />We were marching so gay <br />An army with banners bedecked o'er and o'er <br />With the brightest garlands <br />Wove by fairest of hands, <br />While a flaming bouquet stuck in each musket bore. <br />Each triumphal arch <br />It met on the march <br />Was blazoned with 'Peace'; 'Welcome home each loved one'; <br />While maid, wife, and mother <br />Would with rapture discover <br />And rush out to meet lover, husband, and son! <br /> <br />I forgot all my sore toes - <br />Nay, all of my woes - <br />As I sprang to the threshold and clasped her dear waist; <br />And every campaign <br />I'd gone over again <br />To get from those ripe lips another such taste. <br />But as I flew to her <br />I dropped my fine skewer, <br />And with it my supper. I mastered my grief <br />As the vanishing vision <br />of joy's Elysian, <br />But I couldn't get over the loss of the beef!<br /><br />Anonymous Americas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-soldier-s-dream/
