FIRE
(Revised Version[1])
I
Gold-crowned with flames
Behind its bars
The coal:
And over the chimney
In a black hole
Spark-children playing
Their mazy games
And mimic-mighty wars:
Apple-logs green
Crossed cunningly:
Smoke-veils between
Drifting and lifting....
O fire, my glee,
Poor man’s friend,
Food, company,
Warmth and wine in one:
May I never need
Shillings to spend
On apple-logs
And coals to feed
Thee,
Bright-faced wonder of children and me!
II
Warm at thy feet
I hear
Speech more wise, more dear
And clear than sage’s:
More sweet than pages
Of any poet,
Showing never yet
Smoke-veils of blue
In golden places,
Soot too,
And faces
In fire, and sparkling gay
Little-lived glad children of fire at play.
III
What lore forlorn,
What tale of tales,
When man’s poor stock
Of wisdom fails
In Fire’s cave,
Is born!
Here Jack shall knock,
—That hero brave
On the giant’s door ...
With rumbling snore
The monster turns
From sleep,
And yawns....
But the sheep
Of Little Bo-Peep
(By magic quick
To wolves now turning)
Are following Jack.
Hark, crackle crack!
(Is it fire burning?)
They crunch, they lick
Up “Fe, Fo, Fum.”
Sucking his thumb
Little Jack Horner
Creeps from the corner
Where he had hidden
Behind a pie
From the giant’s eye.
Now doors as bidden
Do open fly,
And in they throng—
The prisoners all
With a merry song.
Here’s Old King Cole
To lead the ball!
How merrily
His fiddlers three
Strike up the air
That pleases his soul—
A mighty sound
As of wind in chimneys
When trees are bare....
Round and round
In smoke-wreaths whirl
Prince, Shepherd-girl,
King, goose-girl, queen,
All who have been
For joy of children,
And company,
Since tales began:
All that a man
Can believe and be
Never again;
Save when in fire
(Apple-logs green
Crossed cunningly)
He sees it plain,
As I have seen,
This thronged night-fire:
Such light that shines
Through Poetry and
Small tumbling strain
Of song, or from a window-pane
As daylight fails,
As evening pales
In a sweet land
Shadowed with pines,
Peopled with children-haunted pines
Murmuring fairy-tales.
[1] First version was published in Ducks, and other Verses, 1919.