They are not here, the comrades of our childhood,
Close friends of college days,
They have left us like creatures of the wildwood
For other ways.

And we must climb with comrades new the mountains,
The highways loved of youth,
And seal in us the welling of the fountains
Of sorrow, ruth.

O we will feel the beauty of the places
That haunted so their hearts;
O we will miss the friendship of the faces
The silence parts.

But ever midst the laughter or the sorrow
We must remember how,
They also lived with hoping for the morrow
As we do now.

And often 'neath the star light of the vastness
Often we will recall,
How they too loved the silence of the fastness
Where shadows fall.

And in their hearts the wistful love of beauty
In shy and silent life,
Was silenced when the summons came to duty
And grief was rife.

To us their youth is wondrous as the eagle
In ever heightening flight,
They will awake the visions of the regal
In darkest night.

They are not here the comrades of our childhood,
Close friends of college days,
They have left us like creatures of the wildwood
For other ways.