Austrian Spring: 1939

How shall we, living and aware,

Partake of spring?

The senseless dust can better share

This burgeoning.

How shall we hear, whose ears have heard

Distress and wrong,

Joy in the note of any bird,

Of any song?

Fixed in a pattern of dismay,

The mind perceives

Only the color of grief today

In greening leaves;

Only the branching veins of hate

In the sprouting vine,

Whose stems against the wall create

Their dark design.

Fiery japonica is wet

With dreadful dew.

Its polished thorn is a bayonet

No garden grew.

Unnatural spring! This tender green,

Fertile with fear,

Is sweet for those who have not seen,

Who cannot hear.

Our hearts are dry and shrunk with pain,

Our drouth is deep;

Be tears for us, O April rain-

We dare not weep.