Classic Poem

Spring!
And her hidden bugles up the street.
Spring — and the sweet
Laughter of winds at the crossing;
Laughter of birds and a fountain tossing
Its hair in abandoned ecstasies.
Laughter of trees.
Laughter of shop-girls that giggle and blush;
Laugh of the tug-boat's impertinent fife.
Laughter followed by a trembling hush —
Laughter of love, scarce whispered aloud.
Then, stilled by no sacredness or strife,
Laughter that leaps from the crowd;
Seizing the world in a rush.
Laughter of life. . .

Earth takes deep breaths like a man who had feared he might smother,
Filling his lungs before bursting into a shout. . .
Windows are opened — curtains flying out;
Over the wash-lines women call to each other.
And, under the calling, there surges, too clearly to doubt,
Spring, with the noises
Of shrill little voices;
Joining in " Tag " and the furious chase
Of " I-spy, " " Red Rover " and " Prisoner's Base " ;
Or the roller-skates' whir at the sidewalk's slope,
Of boys playing marbles and girls skipping rope.
And there, down the avenue, behold,
The first true herald of the Spring —
The hand-organ gasping and wheezily murmuring
Its tunes ten years old. . .
And the music, trivial and tawdry, has freshness and magical swing.
And over and under it,
During and after,
The laughter
Of Spring. . .
And lifted still
With the common thrill,
With the throbbing air, the tingling vapor,
That rose like strong and mingled wines;
I turned to my paper,
And read these lines:
" Now that the Spring is here,
The war enters its bloodiest phase. . .
The men are impatient. . .
Bad roads, storms and the rigors of the winter
Have held back the contending armies. . .
But the recruits have arrived,
And are waiting only the first days of warm weather. . . . .
There will be terrible fighting along the whole line
Now that the Spring has come. "

I put the paper down. . .
Something struck out the sun — something unseen;
Something arose like a dark wave to drown
The golden streets with a sickly green.
Something polluted the blossoming day
With a touch of decay.
The music thinned and died;
People seemed hollow-eyed.
Even the faces of children, where gaiety lingers,
Sagged and drooped like banners about to be furled —
And Silence laid its bony fingers
On the lips of the world. . .
A grisly quiet with the power to choke;
A quiet that only one thing broke;
One thing alone rose up thereafter. . .
Laughter!
Laughter of streams running red.
Laughter of evil things in the night;
Vultures carousing over the dead;
Laughter of ghouls.
Chuckling of idiots, cursed with sight.
Laughter of dark and horrible pools.
Scream of the bullets' rattling mirth,
Sweeping the earth.
Laugh of the cannon's poisonous breath. . .
And over the shouts and the wreckage and crumbling
The raucous and rumbling
Laughter of death.
Death that arises to sing, —
Hailing the Spring!