Classic Poem

We who have passed beyond the city gates,
The dancing and the barter and the beer,
And fought with beasts on starry hilltops sheer,
Or manned the life-boat, shouting to our mates
Among the icebergs in the gusty straits,
Or charged in battle-smoke as cannoneer,
Seem, on our coming home, " a little queer "
To garrulous neighbors, scratching on their pates.
Good neighbors, we are not less sound of brain,
For all the shock, the terror, and the pain ...
But rather more. Our oddities and acts
Need not your sympathy or gossip: they
Do but disturb the issues of your day
By higher values, founded on new facts.