midnight
Nay , when you wake at midnight in your tent from a dream of your far-away home -- oh ! what a different scene to this ! -- tired as you may be , ere you have turned to sleep once more , you hear it again . Yes , at midnight as at noon , at morn as at evening , every day and all day long , Death is gathering his harvest -- and the iron voice tolls on . `` Very slack fire they seem to be keeping up in the front , '' yawns out Ropsley , who has just joined me on deck , and to whom the siege and all its accessories are indeed nothing new . Many a long and weary month has he been listening to that sound ; and what with his own ideas on the subject , and the information a naturally acute intellect has acquired touching the proceedings of the besiegers , his is indeed a familiarity which `` breeds contempt . '' `` Any news from the camp ? ''