The spring sun came suddenly

Down into the old classroom

On a gold girl reading her paper

About the dark poems of Jeffers,

And on a silent girl whose father

She had just told me was dying.

The spring sun in my pipesmoke

Made window-squares on the floor.

There was a fine light on faces:

Of a thin boy soon to be drafted,

On one who had said editorially

He hated God, and one daydreaming.

Spring sun on the shoulders

Of a tall girl who listened well,

And over my hand holding a pencil

In wartime in April, at nine-forty-

The spring sun showed what we were.