Was hungering to know the joy

Of doing something real with life,

And that he craved the test of strife.

And so we steeled ourselves to dread;

To see at night his empty bed;

To feel the silence and the gloom

That hovers o'er his vacant room,

And though we wept the day he went,

And many a lonely hour we've spent,

We've come to think as he, somehow,