Spring found us early that eventful year, Seeming to know in her clairvoyant way The bitterness of hunger and despair That lay upon the town. Out of the sheer Thin altitudes of day She drifted down Over the grim blockade At the harbor mouth, Trailing her beauty over the decay That war had made, Gilding old ruins with her jasmine spray, Distilling warm moist perfume From chill winter shade. Out of the south She brought the whisperings Of questing wings. Then, flame on flame, The cardinals came, Blowing like driven brands Up from the sultry lands Where Summer's happy fires always burn. Old silences, that pain Had held too close and long, Stirred to the mocker's song, And hope looked out again From tired eyes. Down where the White Point Gardens drank the sun, And rippled to the lift of springing grass, The women came; And after them the aged, and the lame That war had hurled back at them like a taunt. And always, as they talked of little things, How violets were purpling the shade More early than in all remembered Springs, And how the tides seemed higher than last year, Their gaze went drifting out across the bay To where, Thrusting out of the mists, Like hostile fists, Waited the close blockade-- Then, dim to left and right, The curving islands with their shattered mounds That had been forts; Mounds, which in spite Of four long years of rending agony Still held against the light; Faint wraiths of color For the breeze to lift And flatten into faded red and white. These sunny islands were not meant for wars; See, how they curve away Before the bay, Bidding the voyager pause. Warm with the hoarded suns of centuries, Young with the garnered youth of many Springs, They laugh like happy bathers, while the seas Break in their open arms, And the slow-moving breeze Draws languid fingers down their placid brows. Even the surly ocean knows their charms, And under the shrill laughter of the surf, He booms and sings his heavy monotone. II There are rare nights among these waterways When Spring first treads the meadows of the marsh, Leaving faint footprints of elusive green To glimmer as she strays, Breaking the Winter silence with the harsh Sharp call of waterfowl; Rubbing dim shifting pastels in the scene With white of moon And blur of scudding cloud, Until the myrtle thickets And the sand, The silent streams, And the substantial land Go drifting down the tide of night Aswoon.