Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

336 HOMIEWARD.
Gulf. Pitching our last camp upon the breezy beach, we
sat down and gazed with delight upon the rolling billows,
and the stout transports chafing at their anchors as if impatient and anxious to bear us home. Desert and danger were
behind; toils and vigils were o'er, and now the faces and
voices of long parted friends began to fill the heart. Soon
the full-orbed moon with visage bright, arose in queenly
splendor from the deep, and paved a silvery track across the
sea; tempting our busy thoughts upward as well as homeward, to that Almighty Spirit who at the beginning "I moved
upon the face of the waters;" and who had borne us unscathed through all the perils of the march, the camp, the battlefield. We looked from our tents upon the lovely scene,"the soul, on past and future, foraging for joy "-till the
spirits of air and sea assailed us with their slumb'rous spells,
while to fairy music chanting"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
iDream of fighting-fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking."