THE BLOCKADE RUNNER

Three years!

Since I had seen the city, in the time

We waited through the tenseness of the hours,

While nerves were zither strings

For fate to jar upon:

All through that night we counted old St. Michael's chimes

Now three o'clock —

The bells spoke as they had on marriage days,

With high and silver-happy tongues

Yet somehow they had gained an irony,

For out across the quiet April bay

Grim, new-built forts grinned at old Sumter

Through the morning mist —

One — two — three — four —

And no sound yet! Then —

Thirty minutes like a life too long;

A red flash dirked the night;

I thought a voice cried, “DOOM”;

That was the gun that killed a million men.

God! How the city woke!

With what a rush of wonder in her streets,

“Burr” of strained voices, earthquakes of feet,

Tramping to rolling drums,

The crowd swept to the Battery.

Roofs were black with gazing folk in knots,

Leveling their spyglasses

Like phalanx spears,

From sea wall to the chimney tops.

Over the rippling harbor came

The growling, bull-dog bark of culverins,

Red rockets curved and plunged

Across the dawn.

The world seemed drunk with confidence

That day —

Some secret nervousness about the slaves;

What they might think or say;

But they did neither;

The bugles shouted at the Citadel.

Hours were punctuated by glad bells,

Soon to be hid away,

And gales of laughter came from gardens,

Where bright tear-dashed eyes must weep farewells

The braver lips refused to falter —

Mouths then seemed only made to kiss

For men in gray,

Who left the ancient houses of proud names,

Through magic gates upon that magic day

When the lost cause was still-born in its hope.