  in The Saturday Evening Post Permission to reproduce in this book ABOVE the broken walls the apple boughs Are murmurous with bees; Again the slumbrous breeze Eddies the snow of drifted chestnut flowers, And little ruffling winds go silverly Along the poplar trees. They never speak of it to me, My comrades. Awkward-kind I hear their voices roughen and grow dumb, Remembering I am blind— But through the dark, I know—I know the spring has come To France! What matter I’ll not see beneath the wheat Red poppies burn again; The gleam of April rain Along the boulevards; the flower girls With mignonette and pinks and clematis; Not see again the Seine Slip under the silver bridges to Rouen? Ah, no; nor see The pale gold smile of buttercups, that glorifies Gray ruins with bravery Heartbreaking, valiant—the smile that lights the eyes Of France! For through the sightless mercy of my days White visions come to me— Beyond the dark I see. Not this worn, steadfast France, wan, gallant, spent, With eyes burned haggard by the spirit of the Maid And Charlotte of Normandy— Smiling through throbbing drums On Rheims restored, Nancy, Alsace, Lorraine, In that new spring that comes— The spring we halt and blind and dead bring back again To France! |
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