Classic Poem

They who look up from white beds in the ward,
Handless, disfeatured, pitifully lamed,
Seem often those whom suffering least has marred,
The body broken but the soul unmaimed.
Even it seems a richer life is theirs,
As though these shattered hours had left them wise;
Even a ghostlike smile the poor mouth wears,
As though a pleasure took them by surprise,
Is it that to have walked the road of pain,
Or fainted half-way, neighbor to the slain,
And still to be alive, makes life more sweet?
Is it, we ask, that when the reckoning calls us,
Merely to face whatever doom befalls us
Is peace of mind, and more than hands or feet?