Now the Heralde Trumpet (Spring 1952)
Now the heralde trumpet the glad triumphant news
With gay abandon; the putty city faces brighten.
Signal the message then - "Now it is spring!" -
And write it everywhere. Sing it and dance it endlessly.
Spring, alas, of soldiers on the move; the quick stroke
Of steel tearing through village and over new-turned earth,
Crushing the slow peasant faces, breaking the ploughs
In this spring of liberation - meaning for the lucky
A quick scorching death by petrol bomb!We dare not think
of the unlucky.
0 bitter spring of man's long agony and fear.
But for a moment escapist, consider in street or public garden
The pink blossom icing of cherry tree gently smudging
The lengthened, day with colour; acres of sky at evening,
Serene, moving in silence to night’s still mystery;
The lonely youth breaking his heart in secret love;
The poet writing out his urgent but unheeded words.
Yet, winter past, our boundless need remains,
And we ask again for courage in a new season,
That from our failing strength and near-despair
May flow new hope, new certainty, new faith
And - whisper the seditious word! new peace.
