WE wander now who marched before, <br />Hawking our bran from door to door, <br />While other men from the mill take their flour: <br />So it is to be an Old Soldier. <br /> <br />Old, bare and sore, we look on the hound <br />Turning upon the stiff frozen ground, <br />Nosing the mould, with the night around: <br />So it is to be an Old Soldier. <br /> <br />And we who once rang out like a bell, <br />Have nothing now to show or to sell; <br />Old bones to carry, old stories to tell: <br />So it is to be an Old Soldier.<br /><br />Padraic Colum<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-soldier-3/
