White, white they lie, smoke-smitten roofs and streets,-
Their yearlong black distemper blanched away;
Their faces and their spaces gray in sheets
Of splendor wonder-wrought are born to Day.

Air-flocking armies seize the shackled town;
Their tents are bright on house-tops and in fields;
Their lances hang in rows, their banners drown
The blinded lawns that gleam like argent shields.

Clad on with ermine, lo! the muffled limbs
Of trees grow shadows mated unto night;
The roving eye is lured along the rims
Of walls that stretch victorious lines of white.

The deadened fall of foot and hoof unheard
Breaks not the fettered air; the wheels are dumb
On smothered ways; the sullen stream unstirred
Engulfs the swift, bright legions as they come.

Old dome and tower, pinnacle and spire
Are charmed to crusted marble 'gainst the clouds
In which, enmeshed, the struggling round of fire
Peers dim and red across the city's shrouds.

There let her lie in beauty 'neath the hems
Of mantle pure, miraculous and cold.
And leaden skies. Soon toiling Town and Thames
Shall hold their ancient grayness as of old.