The Coming of Peace

It was the night when we expected news from France,

To say the war was over, and the fighting done;

The tidings that would make my heart rejoice at last,

For foe as well as friend, and make the peoples one.

And as I moved amidst that silent multitude,

Feeling the presence of a wild excitement there,

The world appeared to me so strange and wonderful-

I almost heard a cuckoo in Trafalgar Square!