Read "The Camp Fire" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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.