From, The Lady of the Lake; Soldier, Rest! Thy Warfare O'er
by Sir Walter Scott

Scottish novelist, poet, historian, translator and biographer, best known as the author of the historical novel and author of Ivanhoe (1819). His first published works were translations - The Chase and William and Helen (1796), a translation of two ballads by G.A. Bürger, and a translation of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen (1799) - and a compendium of border ballads, collected by Scott in three volumes, entitled Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3). These were followed by a narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and other poetic romances: Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810), Rokeby (1813) and Lord of the Isles (1813). He also published eighteen and twelve volume works of Dryden and Swift in 1808 and 1814 respectively, before the appearance, in 1814, of the first novel Waverley (1814).

This became the first of a trilogy of novels with the subsequent publication of Guy Mannering (1815) and The Antiquary (1816). Four other series of Scottish historical novels followed - The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality (1816); Rob Roy and The Heart of Midlothian (1818); The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose (1819) - before his taking up of specifically English history in the more famous texts: Ivanhoe (1819), The Monastery and the Abbot (1820), Kenilworth (1821), The Pirate (1822) and The Fortunes of Nigel (1822). Later works include Quentin Durwood (1822), Redgauntlet (1824) and The Talisman (1825).

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From, The Lady of the Lake; Soldier, Rest! Thy Warfare O'er
by Sir Walter Scott

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping;
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.

Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveille.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.

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From, The Lady of the Lake; Soldier, Rest! Thy Warfare O'er by Sir Walter Scott