I.
There will be hours of loneliness for some
But not because of solitude or fear, 
Nor for the sound of bugle or of drum. 

Something deep-veined and coursing, like the blood, 
Has yielded to a forced serenity, 
As when the desert sands dam up a flood. 
The high-held purpose and the long drawn bow, 
The steady aim, the hard, fixed attitude 
Exact a toll, induce a vertigo

Until the mind shall grasp new aim and mood, 
And nature's fountains find themselves renewed.

II.
They will walk slowly where they walked before,
Noting the well-worn steps, the maple's shade
Where once they loitered, and the church's door.

Let them remember slowly: do not thrust
The little thorns of old remembered joys 
Into their hearts — too soon those joys were dust 

If some brief interval , their smile is lost,
Attend to silence; be a voiceless bird
Within a garden close ... It may be they have crossed

Strange borders never crossed by spoken word, 
Seeing what is not seen, hearing what is not heard.