The Old Admonitions

The friend that I had
Marched away to the war
And the girl that I loved
Turned me out of her door,
And the taste of my life
Without friend, without wife
Went sour at the core.
The minister muttered
‘‘Man reaps what he sowed.’’
But the old admonitions
Are dust in the road,
Are as useless to me
As the wind in the tree,
As the big-bellied, arrogant
Wind in the tree.