Strange Borders
F. Price
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 â 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.